Paradise UNLIMITED
by 2o3g
Summary: Giygas and Ness. They're probably the last people you'd ever expect to be teammates. At first, they only teamed up to defend themselves from Pokey, who has returned. Now, A threat much bigger than even the war against Giygas is around the corner. Through all the lies and deception of this new enemy. Will the Chosen Four be able to trust the new Giygas? Sequel to Trouble in Paradise
1. Intro

_**Holy Crap, I am hyper. I'm already going to crank out another story. Well, you see, This is going to take longer than trouble in paradise, mainly because I plan to average about 2000 words per chapter, and I'm a busy guy. Anyway, Enjoy!**_

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My name is Daniel Thompson, and I am living in the beautiful town of Summers. I live a very normal, luxurious life in Summers, the hook is that how I managed to get here in the first place. You see, I'm a professionial thief. Most people here are corporate bigshots, other people like to dabble in the stock market, if you live by the docks, chances are your a fisherman and you live in your boat. I was born to a poor family in fourside, my parents tried to treat me lovingly, but we were just too poor. So I decided to take up being a thief, I stole things to survive. No shame in that, right? You see, the only real difference between myself and everyone else in Summers is that I'm not as discreet as everyone else when I steal from people.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not like run in peoples houses all 'armed robbery' and whatnot, I'm still as discreet as I can be when I steal. I plan heists, I go in quietly and I get out even quieter. I take the valubles, and get out. I've been doing this long enough to bypass most forms of home security, and that's exactly why I'm going on a heist right now.

You see, I'm planning to steal from a mansion, this isn't just any mansion though, this mansion belongs to a rich 16 year old boy named Steven, this guy just completely appeared out of nowhere about two years ago, ever since then he's blown up in popularity. I've seen articles about how he just dominated the stock market over the course, I'm always reading about how he always knows when to invest and when to pull out. This led to him being one of the richest guys in Summers at the age of 15. Fast foward one more year and he's still on top. Well, all his success must've given him some sweet stuff to loot. I feel bad for the kid, but he needs to figure out how the world works evantually.

I've gone through the necessary precautions, I've met the kid once before, he likes to walk around Summers a lot. I've driven around his house a few times at night, just to get a feel of the area. You know, stuff like possible escape routes, hiding spots and whatnot. I've seen the inside of his house, due to the tour he has given during a certain television segment. I've looked at his security system while he was out, his lock is pretty easy to pick. He's not very smart. You see? This is why I need to do this, this little brat needs to learn. That aside, I think I'm set, I don't think this isn't going to take very long. I get on my gear and run to my car. I start it and get going to get this whole operation started, I know where Steven's place is, it's not very far from my house.

This'll be pretty simple, The plan is that I get to Steven's house and pick the lock to his front door. Acording to him, he doesn't even have a butler or anything. So, after I pick the lock to his front door, I'll quietly walk around his house, picking up items of interest along the way. I know where his room is, thanks to that tv segment, I can avoid it. Once I take all the items of interest, I'll get back in my car and drive home to count the spoils. Simple stuff. I stop the car gently at the curb, making sure to put it in a place he won't be able to see it. It helps that the car is black.

I use my lockpick and gently pick the lock to Steven's house, after a minute of trying the door slides open with a click. Bingo, i'm in, It's about four in the morning, so Steven's definitely asleep. I take a look around and search of any points of intrest, nothing yet, but this is only the foyer. Steven's house is a pretty simple one, well for someone living in Summers anyway. When you first enter the house, you enter a long hallway, on your left, you get Steven's main living room. On your right, you get a closet, mainly for shoes. If you walk down the hallway, you get a set a stairs going both up and down, upstairs is the typical stuff, bathroom, bedrooms, that kind of stuff. Downstairs has a game room and another bathroom. I could probably get some good stuff from the game room, but the living room is my first target. Slowly, I tiptoe to the living room, careful not to make any noise. I take out my flashlight and turn it on to a dim setting. Tsk, all I see is cheap boxing memorbilla. Nothing of interest. Suddenly, my flashlight goes out. Huh? I swore put in full batteries in this morning.

"FinD aNYthinG yoU lIke?" A voice calls out to me, I've been busted. The peculiar thing is that the voice sounded like Steven's but it was horribly distorted. Then I felt a hand grab my on the shoulder and forcibly turn me around. Oh my god! What the hell is that!

The thing I saw before me was beyond disturbing. It looked like Steven, except this thing was horrifying. Its form wavered, as if it was a relection on a body of water. Steven's fair skin was now a deathly pale, and there was a deep crimson aura radiating off of him. On his face, his mouth was split in a horribly distorted cheshire grin, far beyond what any human being could do, it bared his teeth. Instead of the pearly white, perfect teeth he usually had, he had these ugly, crooked yellow teeth that looked sharp enough to kill. Lastly, I looked at his eyes... Oh god his eyes! Instead of Steven's normal brown eyes, his eyes were replaced with souless black pits, and in the middle, there were these glowing, blood red orbs glaring RIGHT AT ME.

"dO noT tRy to taKE wHaT iS Not youRs, now rUn baCK tO thE CaGe yOu caLL THE moRtAl coIL, you pig." It said to me in it's destorted voice. I scream as loud as I can as I run out of Steven's house. I get halfway down the street and I hear it's insane cackle like it's right behind me.

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"Hahahaha! Run forest, RUN!" I friggin love PSI! "Hohohohahahaha!" *Plip* I just stepped in a lukewarm puddle, this isn't funny anymore; I think I have an idea on where this puddle came from. Goddamnit! I'm fucking barefoot too! Well, the point here is that he is not going to try that shit again. I usually put a barrier around the house before I go asleep, but that was just too damn funny to pass up; well, it was until I just stepped in this damn puddle. I better get the mop.

Well hi there, reader. I go by lots of names, The top two are Steven and Giegue, I also go by other endearing names such as: Giygas, Asshole, Womanizing Prick, Dickhead, Gary, Stu, and other great names I just can't seem to remember. Well i'd prefer if you addressed me by Steven or Giegue. I prefer to not be called Giygas anymore, that was my war name, and as you can clearly see; i'm not at war right now; nope, just living my life in peace, having as much fun as I can.

I get to the broom closet and get myself a mop. Hmm, I did a pretty good job at scaring Mr. Thief. You see, telepathy also has another, stronger form of itself, although it's used for a different purpose. It's not a matter of telepathy beta or anything like that, it starts out as telepathy and then becomes domination once your good enough at it. Domination is more than reading the mind, it's controlling it. You've heard of domination. It's better known as Giygas's influence. How is this relevant to what just happened, you ask? Well, what I did was use PSI to change the appearence of my eyes, and then I used domination to make him think that he was seeing a horrible disfigured Steven. It worked nicely, too nicely, resulting in the puddle i'm mopping up right now.

Now, how do you think I know all this PSI stuff? You're probably thinking about how 'Giegue isn't a 16 year old human boy, and he doesn't talk like one either!' Well, things happen; those certain 'things' resulted in Giegue The Alien merging with a certain Steven The Human. So, uh, I'm basically a humanized Giegue, or a really powerful Steven. Take your pick; it's not like i'm really sure myself, so I just go by those two. Well, those and all the other wonderful names you read.

Well, the merging between Giegue and Steven had some side effects. What did you expect? Nothing like this has ever happened in gian or human history. From what I've seen; the side effects are mostly positive, with the exception of one inconvenience, my eyes. No, there not black or anything. My eyes are a deep shade of ruby red, you see, people don't really like the idea of a boy with red eyes, PSI is fine, but if you have red eyes? You're in big shit then. This is Summers for christsakes; red eyes are middle class! OK, that was a horrible joke, but nonetheless, showing off my unnatural red eyes to the general public isn't a very good idea, which is why I wear colored contact lenses. Another thing is something the merge didn't really cause, but it happens. You see, when I use major PSI, I get a red aura and my eyes glow, that came from being part Giegue, I think its pretty badass. Besides that, the merging resulted in my interesting personality. Giegue was a very calm and calculating guy, he was the kind of guy that could think of the most ridiculous plan and manage to make sense out of it. Steven on the other hand, he was a very aggressive guy, or so he wanted to be. The truth is, he had a pretty hard time getting his feelings across. When the merge happened, their unique traits mixed, like chocolate and peanut butter. I'd love to talk about my own personality, but you'd probably get a more honest answer from some of my 'colleagues.' I use that term loosely, not many people like me, not that it's very suprising, considering i've probably fought with most of my 'colleagues.' Well, that's life.

I don't have many colleagues. as I've said, the only colleagues I've had are people I've fought with as Giegue. I've worked with them as Steven, but that was really just me being a dick and doing stupid shit. I guess my closest thing to a friend is Ness, and he specifically told me to stay the hell away from him unless we get a lead. On who, you may ask? Well, you have to have read Trouble in Paradise, or you'll have to tune in to the next chapter. Oh, and if you spoil it, I'm finding where you live and punching you in the face! Well, that aside, I guess I have Jeff too, but he has school all year 'round. I guess I could drop by Winters or something, but I'm positive he wouldn't appreciate that

Mopping's done, and with that, so is this introductory chapter. You're probably asking yourself something like 'why is he talking to me, the reader?' Well, because this is the introductory chapter, moron! I think I can lean on the fourth wall a bit, just for the introductory chapter. Fair warning, your going to feel really lonely after this, I'm not really going to be talking to you much, I mean; I enjoy leaning on the fourth wall every now and then; I feel obligated to, after all, Earthbound did it's fair share of fourth wall humor, right? Although fourth wall humor is funny, it stales quickly, and it doesn't help when the materiel in question is trying to be serious, which this is going to be kind of serious, not too serious, though, it IS Earthbound, after all. Well, I suppose that concludes this introduction. Bye!


	2. To Cinqtopolis Again!

"Ugh." I wake up feeling like crap. I really hate the stupid prick who tried to rob me; It was pretty funny, though I really didn't need him to wet himself. Where's the manliness in that? I went to bed at like, six or something. I'm probably going to have to explain this. If squealed, which he probably did, then I'll have to explain to the press that I am most definently not a witch. It's stuff like this that make me think if humanity has really advanced at all. Man, what a pain.

I walk over to the mirror and slip in my brown contact lenses, I could use PSI to change my eyes, but that takes a fair amount of concentration to do so; if I lose concentration for even a second, my eyes go back to normal. It's more trouble than it's worth, which is why I wear the contacts.

*Ding Dong!* Oh boy, here comes the press. I blink a few times to get used to the contacts. I go to my dresser and put on a pair of grey sweatpants. I yawn and have a nice strech before I go downstairs to meet and greet. As I get closer to the door, I can hear the press talking amongst themselves. Don't they have celebrities to talk to? Fuck, I'm right in front of the door now; I take a deep breath and reach out to the door knob, I really don't want to do this. I take another deep breath and open the door. As soon as I open the door slightly, the door explodes open and I'm bombarded with loud mouthed press and the flashes of cameras. After five minutes of yelling, the crowd suddenly went silent as they held there mics to me. After another five minutes, I realised they were asking me a bunch of questions.

"What?" Is all I can say. Seriously, don't these morons have real celebrities to bother? Sorry, I mean interview. Goddamnit. Can you imagine what waking up to this is like? Annoying, that's what it's like.

"Steven, is it true that your a practictioner of voodoo magic?" A male reporter stepped forward, when he was finished asking me that, a million microphones were shoved towards me.

"Where would you get something like that? That's silly." Silly? Silly? More like fucking ridiculous! Voodoo? Fucking voodoo? That's just so ignorant! I guess it's the Giegue in me, but when you mix up PSI for something as dumb as voodoo; I get mad. I'm doing pretty good job at hiding it though, i'm suprised, cosidering how easy it was to get Steven mad.

"Someone tried to break into your house last night." Another reporter stepped forward. "He told us he saw some possesed thing when he got in your living room."

"Really? Wow? You don't say." I feign suprise, I should get an oscar. "I was watching the T.V really late at the time, I got really into it, so I didn't really get to hear this guy. "

"I don't recall ever telling you he was a guy." He replies in suspicion. Are you serious?

"You just did." I reply flatly.

"Or did I?" What the hell is wrong with this guy?

"YES." I grunt at him. What a dumbass. "You told me he way a guy twice. You need to lay off the conspiracy theories man." The reporter then put his head down and walked away. Idiot. "So, is that all you came to bother me about?" I ask the rest of the press with an exasperated sigh.

"Steven." A female reporter walks up to me. "Are you ready to talk about how you know the boy with the stripe shirt." Not this again. It's no secret to the people of Summers that I know Ness, but I haven't told them how I know Ness out of respect for him, and I don't plan to. I don't think people are ready to know about how the alleged 'Universal Cosmic Destroyer' is a part of me.

"Go bother someone else! Actually, I heard the Runaway Five went bankrupt again in Fourside, go there!" I yell out grumpily as I walk inside and slam the door shut. Stupid press, don't know how to mind their own damn business. I press my ear to the door and listen. They're actually moving away! Praise the lord! I smile as I walk upstairs to my room. I got a pretty nice day ahead of me. I'm going to take a nice walk around the city, maybe get a few drinks. I'll have to go check up on Jeff later, but that's not very important at the moment. I pause to take out my lenses as I prepare my shower. The water heats up quick as I step in.

Lots of things change in two years. The happy stripe shirted boy... That's not a really good way to describe Ness now. You can tell what Pokey has done to him emotionally. He used to be a more lively person, he still goes out though; it's not like he's completely emo, he's just burned out. It's not like anyone can blame him. He's putting himself through a lot. He personally blames himself for what happened to Lucas's family, I guess it's because he let Pokey go, not that he had a choice anyway. God, I'm going to kick his fat ass when I find him. Every day, I always think about what happened two years ago. Two years ago, I freed Pokey. I teleported his soul into a younger body of his, from right after he abandoned me. Due to what I did, he now has over 1000 years of knowledge packed inside his younger form. I had planned to put him back in the absoulutely safe capsule when I was done, but he outsmarted me. I still can't believe it, that fat sack of crap is actually pretty smart. Now, Ness and I are looking for him, and he knows exactly what he did wrong in his original plan. Ness and I will stop at nothing to find that idiot, but we haven't seen him for two years. I guess he's trying to keep us from relaxing; It's working on Ness, It's not working on me because my PSI is too strong. I instantly know when Pokey shows up. Plus, he needs Jeff to teleport him away, we have Jeff on constant observation. He can't even shit freely without us knowing.

I laugh a bit. I got a kick out of that. I strech as I turn off the water. My shower's done, I go and put on a nice white suit. I give myself a good look in the mirror. Looking good! I slip in my contact lenses as I walk out of my house.I put a barrier around the whole area, gotta make sure doesn't try again. I yawn as I start to peacefully stroll down the beautiful streets of Summers. This is paradise. There's the beautiful women tanning on the beach. The pleasant smell of the ocean, mixed with the food of all the exotic resturants. How can you not like this place? I inhale deeply as I walk along the streets of Summers. Wow, the mix and match club closed down? That had to be the longest any business has lasted in that building. You see, there's this one building that's been always switching businesses. All I know is that when Ness was here, it was called the Stoic club. It changes a lot, It's kinda ridiculous.

Right beside the whatever-it's-called building, there's a cafe. Why not? I'm thristy anyway. I walk in the cafe, everyone instantly turns to me. Oh wow, did I luck out! It turns out I just walked into a cafe full of cute 16 year old girls. The girls instant talk amongst themselves. Time to do a little mind reading!

'Ohmygod he's so hot!' I hear one girl think. Wow, I should walk into cafes more often, this is doing wonders for my ego!

'Should I ask him out?' Don't bother, I'll say no, I'm not looking for a girlfriend. She's cute, though.

'What the hell do they see in him? What a snob...' What the hell? Someone doesn't like me? Now that's interesting!

Sure enough, among the blondes talking with each other, in the middle of the cafe, there's a girl wearing all black, hair black too. She looked kinda emo, I didn't even know there were emo people in Summers.

"Hello." I speak to her, trying to make small talk. It just occured to me; what the hell am I doing? Here I am, talking to girl who doesn't even like me, but for some reason; I just seem drawn to her. Maybe it's because she looks depressed? I'm never like this to anyone, usually prefering to walk around by myself, but here I am, trying to talk to some girl I don't even know.

"What do you want?" She looks at me bitterly. Her eyes were a bright shade of green. "Why are you talking to me? I sure the barbies actually care about what you have to say, 'cause I sure as hell don't." She glares at me. Oh I get it, by barbies, she means the girls at the front of the cafe. That's clever.

"Geez!" I pout. "What did I ever do to offend you, sweetheart?" She glares at me even harder at the word 'sweetheart.' She then sighs and looks down at her drink.

"You're fake, that's all." Fake? I honestly can't say I saw that coming.

"What do you mean by fake?" I ask seriously.

"You pretend too much." Well know shit, but how? "I know you're hiding something big, I just can't tell what it is. There's got to be more to you than 'this'." She said as she motioned to a rich looking guy in a suit. Not bad, that's a pretty good guess of hers.

"Well, that's a pretty good guess. I am hiding a lot from the people, I can't deny that. In my defence, I don't think the general public is ready for my secrets." She scoffs. Well, I do have a lot of things to hide, especially the whole 'almost took over the world' thing. I know I'm not completely Giegue, but there's no way in hell the ignorant people of Summers are going to listen to something I'm not even too sure about. I'm hiding things because I'll probably die if the people find out.

"Really?" She raises an eyebrow. "Tell me one, one of your secrets, I mean. It doesn't have to be big, but tell me something that no one else in Summers knows. I won't tell." Well, I can tell she won't. I still don't know why I feel like talking to her. Life's mysteries I guess.

"A secret, huh? Well for starters, my eyes aren't actually brown." I smile to her. "My eyes actually a different color, these are just contact lenses." Oh god, why did I have pick THAT secret? Now she's going to ask what color are my eyes.

"Your eyes arent actually brown, huh?" She looks up at me and raises an eyebrow. "What colour are they?" She asks in confusion. I knew it.

"Now that's something I can't share." I smirk at her.

"Why? It's not like it matters." She pouts. If only you knew, honey bunny. If only you knew.

"It matters more than you think." I smile at her. If I showed her my eyes, she'd scream, definetely. She will either scream or tell everyone, people knowing about my eyes is not good.

"Fine. I'll drop it." She sighs, exasperated. This gives me an idea, a completely ridiculous idea, but an idea nonetheless.

"You know, If you really want to know the real Steven, I can take you to a place where you can figure out a few things no one even suspects." I smile sincerely. She shifts in her seat as she squints at me, in thought.

"Really? Just why should I go anywhere with you?" She glares at me. Well, it's a good question. "You're a guy I've just met today, and I don't even like you. That doesn't sound like a very good relationship if you ask me." Are you sure about that, honey? I could of sworn we absoulutly clicked when we first met.

"Well would you rather stay here and be treated like shit all day?" I question her. It's a good question. It doesn't take PSI to figure out that people her age don't like her, she's too different, everyone here dresses in bright clothing, she dresses in black, that alone is a pretty good sign that people don't like her much. I never understood that, girls picking on each other. The girls in Steven's school were like some kind of hivemind, they agreed on everything. Then again, Steven never went to school after grade four, why, if the merge never happened, I would... Um... Steven would still be Steven and he would be stupid. No one could have any idea how confusing this is for me. It's like; I have both Steven and Giegue's memories. So, I've lived both their lives in their perspective. So I might refer to an event that happened to Steven as something that happened to me, same thing with Giegue's memories. It may be the proper way of putting it, but I'm still not sure; I don't think anyone is, to be honest.

"OK, you got me." She sighs. "Where are you going to take me?"

"My hometown." I smile to her. I can't believe this, I'm going to show her Steven's hometown. I'm going to show her Cinqtopolis. She nods to me. "Before we go, what's your name?" I ask her, she knows my name, I think I should know hers.

"Mona." She replies flatly. Mona huh? That's a nice name. It make sense, she looks like a Mona. I take a moment to stare into eyes. I figured it out! I know why I'm drawn to her!

"Well, Mona, why do the girls hate you?" I ask her, she looks down and blushes. She's pretty cute when she's blushing.

"Well, because they think I'm crazy." She bit her lip. "I can do something no one else can do, I can talk to animals." DING DING DING! I knew it! "But no one will believe me, so they just think I'm crazy. But I know for I fact I've heard squirrels talk before.

"Really? I'm no shrink, but I can tell you your not crazy." She looks up to me.

"What do you know?" She stared at me. "You've just met me today."

"Well, I know what you have is a real power. It's called PSI, it's a really useful power, and you are one of the rare humans blessed with it." She raises an eyebrow to me. "I know what your thinking, and no, I don't just say that to anyone." She recoiled in suprise. She started at me completely baffled.

"H-how did you?"

"Because I have-" I look around to make sure no one is listening in. "I have PSI too." I say quietly, almost whispering. Thankfully, she heard me, so I don't have to repeat myself.

"You do? Can you speak to animals too?" She whispers to me quietly, picking up on my whispering quickly.

"Well, no, I can use it to do better things than that." She smiles, signaling me to go on. "I can use it to create energy, explosive energy. I can use it to read minds and see the future." She keeps staring at me. "I can also use it to teleport. We're going to need that in paricular today, if you want to see my hometown." She nods slightly. "Well great! Follow me." I grab her hand and drag her out the back door of the cafe.

"Why do we need to be here?" She asks in confusion as she looks around in the alleyway.

"Because I'm trying to hide my PSI knowledge from the general public. It's not a good thing if they know about it, especially if they start asking where I got it." I sigh, if they start asking, some might come to suspect that I'm the Universal Cosmic Destroyer; that is most definetely not a reputation I would like to have. I'd probably be run out of town, or maybe killed. I definetly don't want to get killed again, getting killed hurts! "So." I snap out of my little episode of remembering my deaths.

"Wait." Mona stops me quickly. "I want to do something before I go." She grabs me by the arm and drags me back in the cafe. Once she drags me back to the cafe, she looks back at me. "Look, I'm sorry for what's about to happen, but I can't pass this up." She smiles to me. She continues to drag me inside the cafe until we're standing in front of those girls at the front of the cafe. Mona smiles and looks back to me again. "Sorry again, but I can't resist." She whispers to me in apology. What does she keep apologizing to me about? What is she talk- MMMHHHHPPH?

Faster than I could blink, Mona grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and kissed me right on the lips. Well, It's more like pressing her lips to mine really hard. I get it, she's kissing me to piss people off. This is familar, I've done this to someone before, not Steven, not Giegue, I have actually done this before as myself about two years ago. After a few seconds, we break the kiss. Mona looks around with a grin on her face. "Who's crazy now?" She grins at the girls, the girls just sat there, mouths agape. I laugh to myself as Mona drags me back outside. Once we get back to the alley. She turns back at me. "Don't think this means anything. I just wanted to kiss their favorite boy toy before they could. You know, as a figurative middle finger." She pouts. "I still think your a fake snob, even if you are psychic."

"Alright then. That was a pretty good way to flip someone off without actually doing it." She smiles at my understanding. I don't understand though, why wasn't I able to read that? Oh yeah, she knows PSI as well, I guess she knows how to block me out of her mind, but where did she learn to do that? It doesn't matter anyway. "Are you ready to go to a real scumbag city?" She nods, not knowing what to expect. I wouldn't either, if I were her. I look around to make sure there is nobody watching. Good, no one's around. I grab Mona's hand and close my eyes, slowly visualising what Cinqtopolis looks like. Once I get the image in my head, I use Teleport Omega to go to Cinqtopolis. "Heh, looks like Mona has joined the party."


	3. Meeting

**Rate and Review, or not. Whatever.**

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Cinqtopolis. What is there to say about this place? It's nice? That's a damn lie. This place went to shit when I was five, I mean when Steven was five. Economy got really bad at that time. It was a nice city, it even rivaled Fourside at one point. Unfortunately, when the economy went to the toilet, so did the city. It's like a domino effect, one thing after another. Now a decade later, Cinqtopolis stands as a pathetic husk of the beauty it use to have, complete with gangs and violence. Well, there was a gang, but Steven and Ness wiped it out. Well, mainly Ness did it. I-er-Steven mainly just watched and freaked out when he saw Ness use PK Flash Omega. Well, he had the right to, It was the first time he saw something that wasn't PK Thunder or Teleport Gamma, I wonder how he learned Teleport Gamma anyway?

"You used to live in Cinqtopolis? Who would've thought the 'rich and beautiful' Steven came from this cesspool." Ahh yes. The reason I came to this figurative crapper. Mona, I came here with my new friend Mona to show her a few secrets of my life. It's funny, In showing her the truth about me, I'm actually telling her the biggest lie. Who knows? Maybe I'll tell her that I was originally two completely different people of two completely different species; I might tell her one day, of course, that's not a very smart thing to do. considering how I still barely know her.

"Well, let's have a look around, shall we?" I'm a little curious about what's been going on for the past two years, even If I have no attachment to this city anymore. I motion Mona to follow me as I stroll around Cinqtopolis. At first glance, nothing's changed. The roads are full of potholes, the sidewalks are still cracked. "Funny, I would've thought the destruction of the Stripe Shirts fixed this place." It looks just as bad as I left.

"Stripe Shirts? Like the guy with the red and yellow striped shirt over there?" Mona asks while pointing. No way, they can't be still around. Who the hell would want to be in a gang called the Stripe Shirts. Eazy E would be rolling in his grave right now.

"Yeah like - WHAT!" Sure enough, Mona was pointing at a guy with a red shirt with yellow stripes. I mean, I knew another gang would come back, but why would they still call themselves the Stripe Shirts? At least they changed the colour scheme. I sigh as I trudge my way to the idle Stripe first, I gotta make sure that this guy is a Stripe Shirt, he might just be a normal guy who likes ugly shirts, sorry Ness! I gently tap the assumed Stripe Shirt on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but are you a Stripe Shirt?" I feel like a dumbass, why would I walk up to a suspected gangster and ask him if he's a gangster? Sure enough, the Stripe Shirt turns to me and looks at me like I'm a dumbass.

"Yes, I am a Stripe Shirt. Now give me your wallet." He glares at me. Ugh, I think like the old Stripe Shirts. They pissed themselves when they saw me. These ones actually think they can beat me.

"Oh, that's adorable. You see this, Mona? The little Stripe Shirt thinks he threatening." Mona tries to hide a giggle. "Run along, little Stripe Shirt. You're going to get hurt if you say here." I speak to him gently.

"Pfft, you think I don't know you? Please, get out of here before I get my boys to break you in half, Steven." He scorns at me. "I ain't scared of nothing, I stared Jack in the face and didn't even blink!" He declares proudly.

"And who would this Jack be?" I find it ridiculous that these morons have already forgot about me, It's only been two years!

"Jack is the leader of the rival gang, The Verticals." Wow, really? You cut off a head and two more take it's place! Also, The Verticals? Why would you name your gang that? "Tsk, look at you! You look like those damn rich idiots on T.V! You might think that you're just higher then everybody else, but your blood's still red." I can't believe this. Look like I have to remind these dumbasses just who came back.

"Just like yours." I say as I crack my knuckles. "By the way, I've seen blood before, so I don't need to see it again, please try not to get your blood on my suit." Well, the last thing I need is blood smeared on my white, $5000 dollar suit, that shit is a pain in the ass to get out, and my suit will never be the same. Believe it or not, while I may be a rich cheat, I happen to hate spending money.

"Shit! Verts are coming!" Another Stripe Shirt comes out of nowhere and yells out "Get your shit ready, guys! Someone just told me Jack's coming with them." The Stripe Shirt continues to run through the neighborhood saying that. Shit, World War Stripe Shirt over here. Well, this is a good opurtunity to see what these Verticals are all about. Sure enough, I look at the street corner and I see- oh my god... You have GOT to be kidding me! Down the street I see a bunch of guys with blue and yellow stripe shirts, with the stripes going up and down.

"WHAT THE FUCK GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND!" To everyone, It looks like I'm screaming up at the sky, but you know who I'm really talking to. Don't you? Yeah you do! Anyway, the completely intelligent Verticals slowly march their way down the street, I guess this is Stripe Shirt territory. There's about 20 of them. I wonder if the Stripe Shirts have the same kind of guns they did two years ago? If they did, I don't think they give them to grunts like these guys. The-ugh- Verticals, continued down the street until they reached us. "Well, howdy there." I greet them. "How do you enjoy being another stupidly named gang? You know, I kinda want to meet your leader. You know where he is?"

"Why should we tell you where Jack is?" A Vert steps forward.

"Well, I recently heard that he's coming with you." I tell him.

"What are you going to do if you find him?" What the hell is this? Do I need to make an appointment to see the leader of a stupidly named gang all of a sudden? I really need to be informed of these things. Nonetheless, I'll tell him what I plan to do. Why not?

"Simple, get to know him, have a coffee, beat the shit out of him, yow know." All the Verts start to laugh. I swear I even heard some Stripe Shirts laugh along with them. Now I just want to punch Jack more, whoever he is. "What's so funny?" I grunt

"You obviously have never seen Jack, you wouldn't be talking like that if you did." The Vertical explains to me.

"Well, you obviously haven't seen me fight. You wouldn't be talking like that if you did." I explain to him.

"Really now?" He asks me skeptically. "OK then. Let's see what you got. Fight me." He raises him arms and gets into a fighting Stance. This is laughable, does this guy seriously think he can fight me? He couldn't even handle normal Steven, and I'm a completely different story. I love how stupid people can be.

"Seriously?" I punch him in the face, knocking him down easily. "If you really want to know what I'm capable of, you should all fight me at once. That's what all you gangs do anyway, right?" I smile as I stretch a bit. "Well, too bad. I'm going to use PSI. Watch out Mona, you're about to see a lightshow."I turn back at Mona, who's huddled by a building, a thumbs up. I smirk as I turn back to the Verticals. With a wink, a huge PK Flash goes off and messes them all up, either temporarly blinding them for knocking them out." Yeah, the Giygas part of me has a mastery of PSI far beyond human comprehension. As a result, I can blow people up with a simple wink, along with not having to call out my attacks like a moron. Any Gian and Starman can do this too, I'm lucky enough to be one of the only humans in this time capable of this, along with Ness to an extent. In general, the only other people who can do this at all are Ninten, Ana, and Paula and Poo are learning it, besides those guys, there's the great George himself, and I don't know much about the future, but I can assume that Lucas kid is going to learn it too. So yeah, I'm not the only one. So don't starting yelling 'SUE!' I'm not, I'm half of an established character, I have rights.

I really have to stop doing that. So, as I was saying, I can use PSI without saying anything. Although, I can only set off weaker PSI with a wink, I usually have to stick my hand out for the Stronger stuff. "Ohmygod!" I hear Mona behind me. "That was soo cool! Who would've thought Steven could do that!"

"I know it was." I smile at her. It's fun to see people freak out at the awesomeness of my PSI. Man, even Ness must be amazed my me.

"W-w-wait, you're THAT Steven?" One of the Stripe Shirts asks me.

"Yeah, I kinda am." I tell him. His nervous expression suddenly turns into flat out terror.

"Oh SHIT! Everyone, Steven got stronger!" Now that's more like it. "He's back! He's back!" Ah, this is good day for my ego.

"This is what I'm talking about, Gangs wetting themselves when they see me. You see this, Mona? Everyone runs from me in this City, and It looks like I have to beat down two leaders this time. I'll take down the Stripe Shirt leader and I'll take down this 'Jack.' Oh yeah! I'll sure as hell take that little Jack, I can visualise it now!" I smile to Mona. "I'm going to find that little Jack and tower over him like a beast, and I'm not going to call him Jack, I'm going to call him little man! It'll be great! I'll-"

"Umm, Steven..." Mona interrupts me, I look at her to see she's pointing beside her. Sure enough, a short guy wearing a vertical Stripe Shirt looked at me. He was a small guy, maybe a solid 5 feet tall.

"Your Jack?" I ask, the guy smiles as he shakes his head.

"You might wanna think again about who's going to tower over who, little man." A booming voice comes from behind me. I turn around and HOLY SHIT! "Yeah, that's what I thought." This guy was huge, at least about 6 foot 3 or 4. He wasn't wearing a vertical Stripe Shirt, he was wearing a black tank top with a red bandana around his neck. He had sandy blonde hair and sunglasses on. Wow, I should've come to expect that this guy would be huge.

"Jesus, you're built like a guy I know!" As I look up at this guy, my blood begins to boil, Blame the Steven part of me, I just want to fight him. I don't think this little trip is going to be so simple now.


	4. The First Battle

Jesus christ. This guy is big. I would pay serious money to see this guy and Teddy fight each other. It would be like Godzilla vs King Kong all over again. Although that's a bad example, since that movie is pretty shitty. You get the idea though. "Hiya Jacky!" I call out to him. "How are you doing?" I smile casually.

"Umm, Steven, do you really think this is a good idea? He's almost twice your size, and he's a gang leader. You shouldn't really be talking like that." Mona calls out to me nervously. I look back at her momentarily and see her shifting nervously. Taking her along definetly wasn't a good idea; well, no use whining over what's already happened, right?

"Don't worry. I've dealt with people much bigger than him." That's actually true. I believe I get bonus points because they weren't even human. Ah, Giegue memories are flooding back to me now. I remember an old mission from the High Council, take over the home planet of the Kl'Rt. They were a reptillian viking race, each one could be as high as 10 feet tall. It was easy, granted it was almost entirely with PSI, but still, those guys were monsters.

"Really? I find it hard to believe that a little punk like you is able to beat a guy like me. Then again, you ain't never seen anything like me before." He smirks. Wow, where does he get off being so egotistical! Nobody likes a showoff! Oh yeah... I'm egotistical, and a showoff, and now a hypocrite. "You ever heard of 'Mice and Men?' you're Curley and I'm Lennie." What the hell is Mice and Men? Time for some mind reading... Got it!

"You're as dumb as Lennie too." I love using PSI to think of quick combacks. Paula and Ness would give me shit about that, though. It sucks, I'd mess with PSI lots more if Paula and Ness weren't on my back, well, I can see where they're coming from, I'm only at 70% of my power, and I'm still probably the strongest PSI user of this world. If I tried, I could take over this whole world... Only to be stopped again. Goes to show you that pure PSI power isn't everything. Man, Ness is a genius, you'd think a PSI master with an army would be able to defeat a kid and a few of his friends, makes you think... Anyway, we have a hulk wannabe to deal with right now.

"Hmph, you should watch who you're talking to. Some people aren't going to think you're very funny." He scorns at me menacingly. Wow, he threatened to hurt me, I've never heard anyone do that before. I'm being sarcastic, by the way.

"Whatever, what are you going to d- OOOF!" Son of a... Did this guy just hit me? He's asking for it. I unconciously bring my hand to my jaw. This isn't a good position, I'm kneeling over with my hand on my jaw. I can't get knocked down, I might dirty my suit. Well, If it's a fight he wants... With a calm exhale, I stood upright and brought my fist to his unguarded solarplexus. Now he lurches forward. "It's not funny when it's happening to you, huh?" I then throw the hardest right hook I have straight at his face. It connected, becuase he then fell to the floor, but much to my suprise, he rolls with the punch and gets up to his feet quickly. He stared at me through his now broken sunglasses.

"You're going to pay for that." He grunted as he threw down his sunglasses.

"Send me a bill." I then smile and charge at him with my fists, what he did next is what shocked me, he tapped the ground with his foot, that's all it was, a little tap, but when he tapped, I somehow lost my balance and fell forward, this is pretty strange, since I take pride in my center of gravity. It must've been a concidence, I must've tripped or something. I manage to recover my balance and get to my feet quickly, though.

"Wow, never thought I'd ever see Jack fight Steven. You're screwed, Jack." Ooooh! I still have a fan! Yes! Why am I saying still? I'm pretty sure Steven didn't have any fans during his time here.

"So, you decided to come out, huh, Clyde?" Jack spits out. I turn my head to see this 'Clyde' and I see another guy wearing a black and grey hoodie, horizontal stripes. This guy doesn't really look like a Stripe Shirt. He was wearing a black T-shirt under his hoodie. His hood was all the way up.

"Are you stupid?" I call out to him. "This is technically a gang war. I don't think you really want get involved in this. I appreaciate your support, though." This 'Clyde' starts chuckling to himself.

"Really? I've been involved in this since the beginning. But I suppose you haven't been here in two years, you're probablly lost as hell as to what's going on. " I nod, he has common sense. "Well, I'll tell you the most basic thing first. This is Jack." He points to Jack. "As I'm sure he's already told you, he's the leader of those 'other Stripe Shirts.'" He then points to himself, ignoring Jack's groan of 'they're called the Verticals'. "and my name is Clyde Still, I'm the current gang leader of the real Stripe Shirts."

"You don't say? For a stripey, you don't really dress like one." I say as I give another look to his simple attire. "You dress a lot better than your average moron."

"Well, I'm trying to move towards changing the gang. I actually want to change everything, but I have to ease into it, because my members seem to like being Stripe Shirts, for some reason. I mean, it's a pretty stupid look for a gang." YES! Someone understands!

"Thank you! That's what I've been trying to say from the begining!" I must be smiling so wide right now. "Finally, someone has a brain! Stripes are not cool!" I can feel my cheeks hurting from smiling so wide. I think I found my soulmate, no homo.

"Ha! Well, say that to our roid raged friend." Clyde smirks as he points to Jack.

"What? I think vertical stripes are kinda cool..." Jack looks down. I'm kinda shocked, so much for that fighting atmosphere. It's almost like I never even got in a fight in the first place. This is so riduculous, and I know something's not right about these three being together. It feels like something clicked into place as soon as Mona, Clyde, and Jack met each other, but that's ridiculous, why would I get this feeling from two average boys and a psychically retarded girl. Oh my god! Are we the chosen four! OHMYGOD! WE'RE THE FREAKING CHOSEN FOUR!

That's the dumbest thing I've thought in a while. Why would I be in the next iteration of chosen four? The chosen four were made to destroy me. Sometimes, I really need to make a concious effort to not think of something completely ridiculous. Although, as stupid as that thought was, I still can't shake the feeling of something clicking when those three saw each other. I'll have to look into it when I'm by myself.

"Well, I suppose you two still have a fight to attend to. Well, don't mind me, Steven'll beat you and the Stripe Shirts will own the city again."

"Like when Jonathan was their leader?" I ask him, does he even know Jonathan?

"To hell with that!" He replies forcefully. "Jonathan was a moron! No, seriously!"

"Well, I used to be friends with him when we were kids, so I can't completely allow you to roast him." I sigh. There I am again, putting one identity over the other, I don't really like to do that, putting one set of memories infront of the other, I feel I should give both identities an equal amount of respect, I know I turn my back on this idea a lot, but I feel more attached to Giegue's memories than Steven's, maybe it's because Giegue's lived for 100 years, and Steven's only lived for 16. You have no idea how confusing this is. Well, back to the matter at hand. "-and, Jack? My friend Clyde here killed the mood, I don't really feel like fighting you anymore. So, give it up." Jack's expression turned into one of rage.

"You! Do you honestly think I will just allow you to walk away after knocking me down and breaking my sunglasses! Hell no!" He fumed. Wow, someone really doesn't like being knocked down, huh? I understand the sunglasses though, a nice pair of sunglasses are a pain to come by here.

"You need to chill out man." Clyde began. "Lucky for you, I think I have just the thing to help you do that." He smirked as he extended his hand. Jack obviously knew what he was doing as he braced himself. "You think that's going to help you? Get out of here, PK Freeze!" LOLWUT?

Sure enough, a PK Freeze, about alpha or beta level flew to Jack, he moved out the way though, that sucks. "Really? You know PK Freeze? Are you friggin kidding me? How the hell did this happen."

"Well, It's kind of embarassing." He looked down, before looking back to me. "I kind of admired your ability to use PSI so well, I taught myself how to use it." I don't know what's more ridiculous, the fact he thought Steven was good with PSI, or the fact that he taught himself how to use it. I'm pretty sure the people of Daalam are the only living humans that actually know how to teach PSI to people without it, and even then, I'm pretty sure it takes a bit longer than a few years. However, I suppose I'll let that slide, since Clyde is a pretty cool guy. "So, can I ask you a question?" Wonder what this is about?

"Shoot." I give the green light.

"Who's the girl, over there?" Clyde motions toward Mona

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that too." Jack agreed "She hasn't said anything for a while."

"Huh? Me?" Mona points at herself for conformation. "Oh, I just didn't want to interrupt you guys, I don't think you would've wanted me to either." Yeah, ok, sure, that's the reason, it had nothing to do with the author being a lazy bastard and completely forgetting about her for most of the chapter. "Well, besides that, I don't really have much to add to what your saying. The Stripe Shirts are dumb, that's all."

"I would agree." Clyde started. "I don't really like my gang's outfit, but there is a bonus. You should wear a Stripe Shirt and a red and blue cap on G-Day. Funniest thing ever, the giganites will call you stuff like 'worshiper of the accursed one!' It's pretty funny." He giggled to himself.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. I don't like being in the dark.

"Oh, nothing important, It's just a day the Church of Giygas celabrates." My breath stops and my blood runs cold. I gulp.

"I know I didn't hear that correctly. You were talking about the church of what?" I breathe in, there's no way that could exist. A church, for me? No, a church implies there is a religion. Is there really a religion about me?

"The Church of Giygas. It's a church created to worship-"

"The Universal Cosmic Destroyer." I mumble.

"What's wrong with all of a sudden?" Clyde asks me. I quickly wave my hand.

"Oh no, it's nothing. I just had a very close experience with Giygas. I find it ridiculous that people would actually want to worship him." I say to Clyde. I'm not lying. To worship Giygas is to worship the end of the world, and I've been much closer to Giygas than anyone else on this entire planet, considering how I kinda am him. As I continue to look at the 'church' I can't help but tremble at the thought of the kind of fucked up people inside.

"Do you want to go inside?" Clyde asks me.

"NO! I mean, no thank you. I think I have an idea of what's in there." I know this sounds pathetic, but this Church of Giygas both horrifies and repulses me. An alleged god is terrified of his own worshipers, I've never heard of anything as pathetic as that.

'Giegue.' I hear a voice in my head. I concentrate on the voice for a moment. 'Giegue.' That voice sounds like Ness. 'That's becuase it is. Listen, Pokey made a move, he sent a bunch of Octobots over to Twoson.' Octobots? How did he get Octobot's

'What kind of Octobots? Maurader? Military? Don't tell me he got his hand on some Ultimates!' OH GOD! Not the Ultimates... They'll steal anything that's not firmly nailed to the ground.

'The hell if I know! He designed them, not me!' Oh hell no!

'Seriously? HE designed them? You honestly think that idiot designed them? I DESIGNED THEM!'

'Well, they're green and silver. What model is that?' Hmm, green implies it's a Mechanical, silver implies it's a Maurader, but I only coloured them seprately, so I guess...

'I don't recall that model, I think he designed them.' I heard a loud groan from Ness's side of the conversation.

'Just get the hell over here!' He yelled. 'There's a few hundred here.' Oh, I gotta move a little quicker, then.

'Fine.' I mentally grumble. "Guys, I need to go to Twoson, stay here and talk to Mona or something. I need to go do big-boy business." I try to explain to my new 'friends.'

"Oh HELL no!" Jack screams out as he runs infront of me. "I am not going to allow that! We were just about to fight until you met your new friend. I'm not just going to drop it and forgive you!" It's pretty funny, he's waving his arms around like some bad anime character. Nonetheless, I gotta tell them all like it is.

"Fine, if any of you wanna be tough guys? You can come with me and get the shit beaten out of you. It'll be pretty funny for me to watch." I tell them blatantly. Much to my suprise, they all nod, even Mona. "What the hell? You do realise the only capable one here is Clyde, right? and even he will get the crap kicked out of him. Are you sure?" They all nod again.

"I can take whatever you dish out to me." Jack boasts.

"Whatever. Alrightly then, you morons! Get ready to fight, we going to be right in the middle of the action in a matter of seconds."

"But Twoson is 2 and half hours by plane. How are we-" Before I let Clyde finish his sentence, I snap my fingers and use Teleport Omega to go to Twoson. Sure enough, what Ness said was true. The place was littered with friggin octobots.

"Aw come on!" I can't believe I actually though these models were actually his own ideas! The reason I think that is because they look like a 2 year old gathered up as many Octobot scraps as he could, and put them together. Ugh. Well, they should still be a problem for the underleveled fools behind- me?

"Who getting the crap kicked out of who again?" Jack yells out to me. OK, this is unexpected. Who would've thought that Jack, Clyde and Mona are all destroying the Octobots. That's certainly a lot better then I thought they'd do. Jack's beating the crap of the Octobots with nothing but his fists, Clyde's PK Freezing everything in sight, and Mona's... using PK Thunder? OK, this is weird, do they all have PSI? Jack's creating a small earthquake every time his foot slams the ground, and It's enough to knock people over, as I was shown earlier, that could be PK Ground. It's not very popular in Gian culture, so it's more popular among humans, it would make sense, I don't Jack would be able to match Clyde without PSI.

"Gie-er, Steven!" Ness runs up to me. "Who are they? He asks as he points to Mona my other 'friends'."

"Buddies of mine. Let's get fighting, Ness, we'll talk later." I smile, game time. I run over to one of those butchered Octobots and crack it in the face. Let the massacre begin! A group of Craptobots run up to me and try to do attack me with a beam, I swiftly dodge and knee the Octobot, his friends try to wrap around me but I smash them all, or try to, one suceeds in grabbing me. I look around to make sure there are no civillains watching, It looks like no one's around, perfect! I smile as a blue cloud wraps around the Octobot. Suddenly, the Octobot instantly gets destroyed in the biggest PK Freeze it will ever see.

"Jesus..." Clyde whispers in awe. I smirk to myself as I fire a huge PK Fire at a group of Octobots, instantly destroying them all. This is Giygas, bitches! Within seconds, a huge PK Thunder shoots from my hand and into another group of Octobots, instantly destroying them all.

"Steven! Try not to destroy the land, you damn showoff!" Ness yells out to me. I can't help but notice that his body count is as big as mine. Wonder what he's been doing... "Hey! Don't look down on people just because they don't have the power of 'you know who.'" He must've read my mind. "Also, there's more coming!" Wow, this is actually quite a bit of ripped off Octobots. I'm almost impressed with the fatass. But, I know a move that destroys armies. I focus on the incoming cloud of Octobots, they all get surronded by a deep red cloud within seconds. I have to make sure I do this before they get too close to Onett.

"Guys, back up!" I order everyone to move away. Once they comply, I prepare to release my ultimate move, although it's better known to the humans as Ness' ultimate move, PK Rockin'. "NOW!" With my voice as the signal, my attack instantly destroyes about 1000 or so Octobots. I smile and take in the carnage I caused.

"Oh no." I hear Mona gasp. I look over past the new Octobot graveyard to see, more of them! This is nuts! There's about 2000 Octobots running straight towards us! Why doesn't the fatass order these guys to desist, he should know at this point that all of his tech is second rate, compared to... Oh my god, I got it!

"Ness, I have good news" I yell over to him.

"I hope it's better than this!" He yells back.

"I know how to deal with these Octobots." I begin, "but I need to teleport away for a while. Can you hold them all off?"

"Are you nuts? Do you see how many there are?" Ness screams at me.

"Just try!" I yell back as I teleport away. I hope this works. If it doesn't, we're all screwed, well Onett is anyway, I'll be fine.

...

...

...

What? I'm just telling it like it is!


	5. Stress

"Giegue!" I yell out. It's no use, he's gone. Damnit, why does he always run off like that? Aren't we supposed to be some sort of team? Well, no use crying over spilt milk, we have bigger problems to deal with... Well, I suppose I should start from the begining. My name is Ness, I am temporarily teaming up with Giegue to find a guy named Pokey, mainly because of something Giegue did. We make such a horrible team. Well, it's not suprising considering the identity of my 'partner.' You see, there once was a boy named Steven, he was not a very nice guy, he tried to be, but he definetly made a lot more enimies than friends. I'm not really sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, he got caught in a big mess with a certain alien name Giegue, better known as the 'Universal Cosmic Destroyer', Giygas. So, Giygas inhabited Steven's body for a while, some stupid stuff happened, and Giegue took over Steven's body, then, something else happened, and now there kind of the same person, kind of. I'm not sure, he's a new personality that was formed with the two exsisting personalities. He has Giegue and Steven's memories, Giegue's power, and Steven's jerk attitude, it's proven to be a horrible combination sometimes, although I'm sure the big man himself would disagree. I sigh as I swat away an Octobot. I sure know how to pick my allies.

"Hey! What's the plan comrade?" A guy in a black and grey hoodie calls out ot me.

"We hold them off, Gie- er Steven has a plan to get rid of them, but he needs time." I reply. I really hope Giegue gets here fast. "Also, if you're from Cinqtopolis, you should know, I'm not, nor was I ever a Stripe Shirt." I tell all three of them after recalling my initial meeting with Giegue/Steven, when he was still Steven, anyway, he thought I was a Stripe Shirt and he shot me in the face with a PK Thunder, I had my franklin badge, but he ran up to me, ripped it off, and shot me with Thunder Omega.

"I know that! I changed the stripes to yellow and red when I was first made leader." Leader?

"You're the leader of the Stripe Shirts?" I ask, why would Giegue side with a petty gang leader?

"Yes, and the big dude is a leader of a stupid, rival gang. Can we have this engaging conversation later? Preferably, when we AREN'T being attacked by an army of robots." He says as he runs toward the army. It seems that was the signal, as the two other people that were with him also charged the army. Alright then, if that's how it's going to be. I sprint over to the Octobots while casting Offense Up gamma on myself, getting my bat ready, I jump over to the Octobots and swat a few of them away in one shot, that must've made me a threat, because now many more Octobots are coming to me. I turn to the three to my imeadiate right, one tries to attack me, I duck and swing at it with my Gutsy Bat, I use the momentum from the swing to kick another Octobot up in the air. I swing at the last one and destroy it quickly. I notice four or five Octobots coming to me now, I raise my bat to confront them, as I raise my bat, I notice a blur pass by me, stealing my bat. I have no choice but to raise my hands in defense, I grin as I see a rainbow colored cloud surround a large group of Octobots.

"PK Rockin'!" I shout, the rainbow coloured energy cloud turns into a large explosion, taking a large chunk out of the main Octobot army. I smile to myself as I give the Octobot who took my bat a backhand, I pick up my Gutsy Bat and smile even wider. "Ha! I still got it!" I yell out as I run towards the greatly reduced clump of Octobots. I jump in with a kick, sending one flying into a tree, I land into a roll, taking out another Octobot with a single swing from my bat. These guys are twigs compared to Giegue's Octobots... They could at least take more than one hit from me, these guys are just falling apart. I shrug as I keep swatting away the brittle Octobots. I keep going until the Octobots around me stop suddenly, then one Octobot opened it's body and a speaker came out. Interesting, I dont remember the original Octobots doing that one. Through the speaker, I recognize the voice of a certain former neighbour of mine.

"*BZZT* You fell right into my trap, pig's butt!" Pokey... "By the way, you really look better with the hat on!" He yells at me, taking note of my simple attire, and the fact that I don't wear my red and blue cap anymore.

"Shut up!" I snap at him. "What trap are you talking about?" I hear the smug bastard laugh on the other side of the microphone.

"Look down." He says as the Octobot's speaker goes back into it's body. I do as it says and find that I'm looking right down on to an X. Oh, I see what he did there, all those Octobots weren't getting destroyed by my bat instantly, they were playing dead, luring me farther and farther away from Onett, now that they have more surface area to work with, they now have a full surround on me, although I'm screwed now, I find comfort in knowing that I had to have destroyed a lot of them with Rockin'.

"Oh." Is all I can say. Then, I get shot in the hand with a beam, I drop my bat and pull my hand away. Another Octobot shoots another beam, right at my back. "Argh!" I grunt out in pain, these beams really burn. I get another beam in my upper arm. I cast a Lifeup Gamma on myself and charge forward at the ones I can immeadately see, I jump and kick one, dodge the attack from another and backhand the third one. As I move to continue my only defense, I get a beam to my leg, making me kneel over. I get another beam to my arm. "Guh!" Where the hell did Giegue's new friends go? Can't they at least blow away the surronding Octobots that are about to kill me? I look at the Octobot in front of me as it prepares to...

Get shot in the head? "Yeah, you can thank me later." The monotone, yet cocky voice of a certain cynic rings out to me. I know a voice like that anywhere!

"Jeff!" I call out to him, but how did he know this was happening?

"Yep, you can officaily say that the chivarly has arrived." I turn to see Jeff, Paula and Poo getting ready to fight the Octobots. "It looks like that Chosen Four has reunited once again, hmm?" Jeff smiles. "So, what's up with the Octobots? Did Giyg-Giegue go rogue?" He corrects himself, since Giegue doesn't like to be called Giygas, he claims it's his war name or something stupid like that.

"No he didn't. Giegue is doing something else, I don't know what. All I know is that all these belong to Pokey." I call Giegue by his name since his friends can't hear us.

"Pokey knows how to make robots now?" Paula asks in suprise.

"No, not exactly, he knows how to put them together and reprogram them from his time with Giegue. I don't think he could make his own robot, though. He's far too lazy for that." I explain. Paula nods in understanding. "Well, now that that's cleared up, we should get to destroying these Octobots." I say as I pick up my bat. "Let's knock some heads in chosen four style!"

"Yes. I could not agree more!" Poo grinned as he charged and smashed the nearest Octobot.

"Ready for round 2?" I ask the Octobots with a smirk, not waiting for an answer, I smash one to the ground. This is just like the good old days, Me and Poo are up front and taking care of things, Paula is shooting off PSI, and Jeff is in the back, shooting off some bottle rockets. It goes without saying, but these Octobots don't have a chance, not with the seven of us here.

"STOOOOOOOOOOOP!" The familiar voice of the guy who just deserted me rings out. "Make that 528!" He calls out to us, he must've read my mind.

"What is it, Giegue?" I ask him.

"Yeah, you said something about 528, there's only eight of us, including yourself and those guys over there." Jeff adds.

"Yeah I know that, wiseguy. You can't SEE them, but I came back with an army." Giegue smirks as he turns to Pokey's Octobots.

"So you're saying you have an invisible army?" Jeff cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes." Giegue looks back at us, clearly annoyed. Jeff laughs.

"Oh! OK then, you really didn't need to bring your invisible army, because I'm standing right behind my invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction!"

"You're not very funny..." Giegue said in a very matter of factly manner.

"and you think you are?" Jeff shot back.

"Ouch..." Paula cringed. "That was harsh..."

"Whatever." Giegue shrugged. "I don't really care about how you think of me. All I need you to do right now is wait for the army to strike."

"You're invisible army?" Jeff asked while laughing.

"YES!" Giegue shot back, annoyed. "God damn it... Everyone's a friggin' critic... Just wait for the army, OK?"

"Pointless, we should just go and attack." Jeff retorted.

"Shut up! Wait for it." Well, we did what Giegue asked and stared at the enemy Octobots.

"Why are they just standing there?" Jeff raised an eyebrow.

"They detect something, they just don't know what." Giegue said triumphantly.

"Of course they know, it's your great invisible army!" Jeff added. "You can't be serious about this, can you?"

"Shut the fuck up and watch!" Giegue cried out as he forced our attention to Pokey's Octobots, sure enough, one of the Octobots was torn in half by thin air.

"You have got to be kidding me..." Jeff said in awe.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Giegue yelled to Jeff. "Is that my INVISIBLE ARMY?" Giegue smiled. "Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to discredit me, Skippy!"

"OK! I know when I'm beat, I'll shut up now." Jeff shrugged with his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, you better." He turned back to the Octobots while taking a deep breath. "Go mad, my imperial army." He ordered in a low, threatening voice, watching him order his army, it was almost like he was Giygas again. As soon as he finished saying that, more and more of the Octobots were destroyed by Giegue's invisible army. "You guys too... You can go nuts... If you want..." He added.

"Well, that's as much as an excuse as I'll need." I reply. "Plus, it's good to keep in shape, right?" He nods. "Then, let's go!" I call out to everyone. With that, we attacked, with Giegue's army there, Pokey's numerous Octobots were destroyed quickly and effeciently. After fifteen minutes, the army was completely destroyed, and they're aren't coming back this time. Poo rained Starstorm on them, Paula freezed them, Jeff shot them, Giegue pretty much did all of the above, and I just did things the good old fashioned way, smashing them with my bat. No matter how we did it, the army of Octobots are gone now.

"Yes! I knew you guys would be useful!" Giegue jumped up in happiness, "Oh, right. I guess you want to see my invisible army, huh?" We all nod. "Well!" He smirks, in a way Jeff would when he reveals a new invention. "Introducing the absolute latest in all things asskickery!" A cloud of electricity suddenly appeared behind Giegue, eventually, the cloud of electricity cleared up, revealing a bunch of... Octobots? "Yes! These are in fact, Octobots. Introducing my Stealth Octobots!" The Octobots were colored an extremely dark shade of purple, almost black, they didn't have the glowing eyes the other Octobots had, it was like looking at a shadow. "These babies are mainly used for scouting. They have a cloaking unit, as you saw, or not." He snickered. " Any one of you ladies have any questions?"

"Yeah." Jeff spoke up. "Who'd you steal them from?"

"I made them myself, you dick! What, you don't think I can make robots?" He asked, clearly outraged.

"Well, yeah. I though you were just like Pokey."

"That was rude! That's like comparing you to the Orange Kid!"

"Oh! Wow, when you put it like that, I'm sorry, that was rude." Jeff put his head down.

"So, what's with the robots?" A girl wearing all black approached us, must be one of Giegue's friends. "-and where have you been? None of us could even see you!" Two boys came up behind her, one of them was the Stripe Shirt leader that I talked with earlier, and the other was a big guy with a grumpy expression on his face.

"Nothing! I just found them on ebay, or something..." Giegue must've realised how stupid that sounded, because he let out an exasperated sigh. "I also went to go get an ice cream." He lied, he does that a lot, mainly because he doesn't want people to know that he has PSI, but I could've sworn he went to Summers the first time by teleporting. How could the morons not notice that? I guess they were too busy counting their money... "Exactly!" What is he talking about? Oh, he must've read my mind again. "By the way, everyone, meet Mona, Clyde, and Jack. They're friends of mine." Yeah, whatever, I'm still pissed about the mind reading.

"Stop doing that!" I yell at him.

"I can't help it!" Giegue defended. That's it, time to read his mind, this time I know I'll get it right. Once I established the link, I dive into his mind to see what's going on in there. 'Woke up quick at about noon, just thought that I had to be Compton soon! I gotta get going before the day begins, before my mother starts bitching about my friends!' This isn't Giegue's mind, instead of Giegue's thoughts, I hear some (c)rap song being preformed by some guy with a really high pitched voice.

"Hey! Rap is good, and that's not just some guy with a high pitched voice! That's Eazy friggin' E you're talking about! Also, you're not going to ever get by my mental barrier, stop trying!" Right, the mental barrier, his knowledge of PSI is so strong that he can make a mental brick wall for anyone who uses telepathy on him, it's annoying. Since it's usually some horrible rap song he likes.

"It's better that crap you listen to!" I feel my eye twitch. "Like the Runaway Five! Those guys are lame." This guy has no soul. "And the Beatles, don't even get me started on the Beatles!"

"You don't really hate the Beatles, no one can really hate Beatles."

"Try me. Anyway, we should cut this out, the people who don't know telepathy must be getting confused. Plus, I need to go take care of things anyway. See you." He motions his three friends over to him. "Bye guys!" He waves goodbye as he snaps his fingers and teleports him and his friends away.

"Well that was fun." Jeff sighed.

"It sure was interesting, I don't know about it being fun..." I frown

"I thought it was fun."

"You weren't shot by beams." I remind him.

"True." He nods to himself. "So what is our course of action against Pokey?"

"Well, we don't have one. As much as I hate to admit it, we still don't know where he is, the Octobot attack was just to keep us on our toes, that army couldn't have been his trump card. He has to know he can't beat us in physical combat. He absoulutly has no choice but to decieve us."

"Do you think he really is that clever?" Poo asked out of serious curiosity.

"Would a stupid person figure out a way to live for thousands of years? He's not a moron, not anymore anyway. He's smart enough to give us a run for our money, so watch yourselves out there. Also, it goes without saying, but we can't let him take Jeff, if he takes Jeff, he wins, no questions asked." I explain.

"Aww, you care about me!" Jeff cooed mockingly. Well, it just goes to show you the attitude of one of the most sarcastic people I know. "I know, about that, but I don't think he'll take me, I'm far too heavily guarded by you and Giegue. I just don't see how he can take me, not to mention the fact that I'll be fighting back."'

"You never know." I assure him. For some reason, he lets out a sigh.

"What happened to you? You used to be such a fun guy to be around, now it's like you're dead inside, a husk, if you will." Jeff looks at me seriously.

"I'm fine." I assure them all, I really don't want to talk about this.

"No, you're not." Paula jumps in. "Ness, ever since you saw Pokey two years ago, you've changed. You've gotten paler, you almost never sleep, you skip meals often, and you even threw away your favorite red cap." Not this again... "I know we've tried this multiple times, but please, we can help you." I can't help but sigh, this has been going on ever since I met Pokey in Giegue's lair, they've been concerned with me, they always want me to talk about how I feel or something like that. I rarely ever see the other members of the chosen four, maybe only twice a year, mainly because they always try and talk about this stuff.

"I'm fine! If you want to help me so much, help Giegue and me find Pokey!" I snap at them. Paula looks down with a hurt expression.

"Y-Y-You can't keep living like this." She looks like she's about to cry.

"Giegue and I, Ness." Jeff corrects me.

"Shut up, Jeff! Do you honestly think I need you constantly correcting me?"

"Aw, come on! It's just like the old days!" Jeff cries out in mock hurt.

"The old days are gone! This isn't that simple anymore!" I scream at them. "This isn't a matter of finding a few pieces of some crappy song anymore! People's lives are at stake!"

"They were always at stake, Ness." Jeff crosses his arms. "That never changed, you did."

"Get the hell out of here, all of you! I have stuff to take care of." I yell at them as I turn and walk away.

"Ness," Paula calls out to me. I turn around to face her, her eyes are read with tears. "Good luck, with whatever you're doing." Her voice wavered, as if she was trying to hold back her tears, knowing her, she probably was, she always was so emotional, it's disgusting. I scoff as I turn and walk away. This is getting crazy, we really need to get our shit together.


	6. The Split

It's dark, at first, I thought I was going to go to my house, but then I thought about walking around Onett, so that's what I decided to do, that was about a few hours ago, it's nighttime now, If I could make a guess, I'd say it's about 9:00 now. How could we be so relaxed when Pokey is out there doing what he pleases?

Pokey Minch, I wonder how I even managed to become friends with him; it's not because he was nice, he was always a hateful person, always the first to hate somthing or someone who was different. It wasn't because of our parents, his dad hated my dad because my dad owed him some money. It wasn't because of his brother (who is actually a really nice person, mind you.) I met Picky after I was already friends with Pokey. When I look at all the horrible things Pokey's done, I can't help but ask why I decided to become his friend, all those things he did to Lucas and his family, who knows what else he's done in the thousands of years he's traveled through. Every time I think about what he's done, what he could've done, I always go back to the same question, why did I become friends with him?

'Pity.' I hear a voice ring out. 'It's was probably out of pity.' Ugh, It's Giegue. 'Exactly.' He replies.

'Why don't you just show yourself?' I ask him through telepathy.

'Simple, I'm nowhere near you, I'm still in Cinqtopolis.' No way.

'You can read my mind from there!' That's a little scary.

'Yeah, what the hell do you expect? You don't even try to block anybody out of your mind, It's childs play, I bet with the right kind of training, you could do the same.' I can feel him giving me that arrogant smirk, even if I can't see him. 'Good guess! That's exactly what I'm doing! Anyway, just so you know, I can read your mind from almost anywhere in Eagleland.' Damn.

'If that's the case, can you read Jeff's mind?' I ask him, mainly to test him. No way he can do that, Jeff is all the way in Winters, that's in Foggyland.

'Sure, let's see... Ah! He's thinking about how Tony's been coming on to him more and more now, he's also thinking about how he likes girls, and how he doesn't want to break Tony's heart. Tony's thinking about different ways to get Jeff to love him. That school sounds fun. In some homosexual sort of way.' That's extremely scary! He can instantly read the mind of everyone in Eagleland! 'Gian skillz, bitch! Get at my level! That's what happens when you study PSI for almost 100 years!'

'Why are you bothering me, Giegue?'

'Simple, what you just did was a dick move rivaling something I would do, except I would do it with one of my trademark grins plastered on my face.'

'What are you even talking about?'

'I'm talking about you being an angsty little shit and making Paula cry.'

'Oh.' I groan. 'So you know about that, huh? It not my fault, I've been through a lot.' I hear him scoff. 'Why do you even care? It's none of your business.'

'Why do I even care? Good point, maybe it's because Paula is a good girl who's legitimately looking out for you, and you broke her heart. That's a dick move, even for me. You don't push your friends away like that, and I know I'm the last person who should be telling you this, but even you must know that was fucked up.'

'You're right, but like I said, I've been through a lot.'

'Pfft! Yeah okay, come back after you've died four times, then you might be able to feed me that bullshit.' He shoots back, 'you're being an angsty little prick, and nobody likes an angsty prick, unless you're a female Naruto fan, than you can't get enough of them. But don't tell anybody I told you that, The author's pissed off at me because he feels that I've said too many fourth wall jokes already. He really needs to get the stick out of his ass.'

(A/N: Excuse me?)

'Don't do author's notes! They're unprofessional!'

(A/N: I'm writing a fanfic, not a friggin' book!)

'Whatever! Piss off! What kind of a guy writes fanfics anyway? Go play football or something, you little ninny!'

(A/N: Fuck you, man! You don't even know If I'm a guy or not...)

'SHUT UP!' He mentally yells, creating a pounding in my head, after that, he takes a pause to see if he'll reply. 'Thank god! Anyway, you don't have the right to say anything because you haven't died four times.'

'What do you mean four times? From what I understand, you've only died twice.'

'Well, I consider the merging to be the death of Steven and Giygas, cause it sure as hell felt like it.' I hear him shudder. 'Damn, do you have any idea what dying is like?' I laugh to myself, I can't resist this.

'Yes, actually I do know what dying is like, I read the last few chapters of Trouble in Paradise.' I suddenly get the feeling that he's laughing like crazy right now.

(A/N: Oh god, not you too...)

'You shut your goddamn mouth!' Giegue mentally yells again, giving me an even bigger headache. 'Good one, Ness! Anyway, you really got to apologize to Paula, you made her cry, we already have an ass on this team, ME! You can't be the team dick, I'm already there, man! If the team has two dicks on it, it reduces team effenciency! Go apoligize to her, ya little bastard!' What the hell? He has good intentions, but his logic is completely ridiculous... 'I know! Just say you're sorry, with you being all angsty like this, it's reducing morale! We can't fight properly if we can't get along!'

'You know, I'm suprised.'

'About what?'

'I never thought you would actually care about someone other than yourself...' This is one of the most selfish people i've ever met, mind you.

'More than you think, wiseguy.' A pause on his end. 'I think I need to you to come to my house.'

'What? Why?'

'I think we need to discuss what our next course of action is incase Pokey makes another move. I hid some tech in my house that may give us an edge. I'm about to teleport you to my house, so...'

'Oh OK... Wait what? NO! I can teleport my-' *POOF* The trail to my house quickly changed to Giegue's house. I really hate it when he does this.

"Hey buddy!" Giegue smiles at me. "Nice to see you could make it!"

"Can you please stop doing that?" I grunt at him. "It's annoying, what if you teleport me while I'm taking a shower?"

"That'll never happen." He replies as he taps the side of his head with his index finger. "Because that's the power of cross country mind reading!" I hate it when he brags, too bad that's most of the time.

"Anyway, stop doing that!" I yell at him. It really has to stop, I'll be doing something like, playing with Tracy, or eating dinner, and then. 'You gotta come here, now!' Then, poof! I'm at his house or wherever he wants me. I can't take it anymore.

"Nope, not until you learn Teleport Omega, Teleport Alpha is slooooooooow." He drags it out for emphasis. "Plus, you can prevent it. You just got to know how." He taps his head with his finger again. "100 years... Get at my level..." He whispers jokingly.

"Whatever, what's your input on the whole Pokey situation?" I urge him.

"Not yet. I need to go check my mail." I groan. Are you kidding me?

"Seriously? Don't you thinking tracking Pokey is a little more important that seeing your mail?" I really hate how casual he can be about this sometimes.

"Nope." He smiled as he opened his front door, after a moment, he came back with a few envelopes. "So, let's see here." He flips through them. "Bills, bills, bills, and a letter from Claudia!" Claudia? "Wonder what she has to say to me?" He says to himself as he opens the envelope.

"Who's Claudia?" I ask

"Some annoying girl that handles the elevators in the Monotoli building. You might know her." He pauses to read the letter, after skimming it, he becomes annoyed. "Stupid girl! I've had enough of this shit!" He gets up and storms out. What did the letter say? I'll have to ask him when he calms down. Why am I teaming up with this guy? Not only was he the chosen four's greatest adversary, he's now in the form of an extremly egotisical teenager. I laugh to myself, The more I think about it, I really can't like Giegue, even without the whole Giygas thing, he's just not a person I could bring myself to like. He's rude, selfish, egotistical, hateful, gets angry easily, and there's much more things I can name, It's not important, though, I'm sure he feels the same way, he knows this is just out of necessity.

"I'm back" I turn to see Giegue leaning on the doorframe with a piece of paper and a pen, as well as a key. "Well, I have some things to take care of, you see, the half baked Octobot attack on Onett was a pretty big wake up call to me, and I think it was a pretty big wake up call to you and everyone else too, since that's the closest thing he's done to making a move in about a year, I think we need to discuss what our next course of action is against Pokey." He says to me as he sits down by his dining room table, he motions me to take a seat across from him, I sit across from him, satisfied, he takes his pen and stars writing. "So, get any leads on the Pork-ster?"

"Well, sort of. You probably know this already, but I live next door to his brother, I've been asking him to keep a look out for Pokey, but he hasn't found anything yet." He nods.

"That's a pretty good lead, really good, actually." He looks up to me. "Why don't you take the brother hostage?" Wh-What?

"What do you mean by 'take him hostage?'"

"What the hell do you think I mean? Am I speaking french? Go threaten to kill him, taking hostages is an amazingly good way to get what you want, don't you know?" He snickers to himself. "Nah man, I'm joking, I know he doesn't care about his brother." Why doesn't that statement make me feel any better? "Anyway, I've tried to check out Pokey's Craptobots, you know, to see if he programmed a set of coordinates for them to return to. I don't know man, I didn't find any, It either suggests that he intended them to win and occupy the area, it suggests that he really just didn't have any intention on them surviving, or it suggests that he's a dumbass." He laughs to himself again. "Whatever the reason, he didn't set any return destination, so that's a dead end. You wanna try Stonehenge again?" I shake my head. He begins to write on the paper again.

"We can't, The entire base has been shut down, nobody can even open the door." I hear him sigh.

"Wherever he is, he's certainly in a good position, he can go take a big, figurative piss on us from his nice little treehouse, and we can't do shit about it. He's got a tactical position to die for, that's for sure. I know one thing, he's not allowing himself to have his mind read. I doubt he learned PSI, so that only leaves one thing, his location has to be one of my old hideouts for my soldiers, since I had as PSI Killers installed in almost all of them."

"PSI Killer? What's that?" I ask him.

"Oh, it's not as good as you think, it just makes the area much harder to find with PSI, it also makes it that you can't teleport there, it also makes the people within the area unable to have their minds read. It's annoying to deal with, if only I was more careless..." He says to himself as he scribbles on the paper. "There, done! This'll get her to shut up."

"What did she write?" He wordlessly hands me the letter that was sent to him.

Dear Steven

You're a little prick, you know that? Since you don't understand let me spell it out for you. STOP. STARING. AT. MY. HIPS. I swear, I don't care if your sixteen, if I find you staring at my hips again, I'm going to leave you Prick-less!

From Claudia.

"Why is the hips girl from Fourside so mad at you?" I ask him, he chuckles to himself.

"Simple, a week ago, she got drunk at my hotel room in Fourside and errr-" He pauses. "You know how she doesn't like people staring at her hips, right?" I nod. "Well let's just say she got drunk, and she let me do a lot more that stare at them..." My mouth falls open.

"No way, you didn't..." I blink.

"I kinda did." He flashes me another one of those grins of his, along with a shrug.

"That's horrible. You did 'things' with with someone who was drunk out of their mind?" He drops the shrug and stops smiling.

"So what if I did?" He replies calmly. "What I do in my spare time is none of your concern, besides, I have a nice thing going on here, I have nice things happen to me, and she can't say a thing, because I'm 16, it would only make her look bad."

"She's like, 30!"

"26, actually." That's not any better, that's still 10 years older than him. "By the way, I think your forgetting something, I only look 16, the age difference sure is huge, but it's because I'm over 100 years old, remember?"

"That's only one way to look at it, you're combining Steven and Giegue's ages from before the merge and adding from there, you could also count it by how long it's been since you've merged. That makes you about two years old." He bites his lip, obviously noticing the flaw I pointed out. "But more importantly, why would you do something like that?"

"Why not? Sex is nice, sex is good, people should have more of it." He scratches his head. "Besides, just because I'm one of the good guys doesn't mean I have to be a good person. If it wasn't for Pokey, we wouldn't want to have anything to do with each other. We're not friends, we never will be, you of all people should know that, I'm not going to waste my time changing the way I live just so I can make you happy. This is who I am, and this is what I like to do. Deal with it."

"You're dispicable. I really hate you, you know that?"

"It doesn't really matter if you hate me." He sighs. "I'm the strongest ally you have, without me, Jeff would be taken, and Lucas' family will be destroyed." He replies calmly.

"You wouldn't let him go to the future, don't act like you're doing me a favor, you have a stake in this too." I stare into those ruby red eyes of his.

"You're damn right I have a stake in this! I'll admit that I really don't want Pokey for a noble reason like saving Lucas and his family, I'm hunting Pokey down because he outsmarted me, because I'm pissed that he managed to make me look like a moron, I'm hunting him down because I want to prove that he's not as smart as he thinks he is. I'll be honest with you, Lucas and his family can rot for all I care." If looks could kill, he'd be dead, I was probably giving him the most hateful expression right now. "Oh please, don't give me that look, without my military mind, you'd be lost." I snicker to myself. "What's so funny?"

"It's just that, what kind of great military mind gets beaten by a bunch of kids?" His expression changes. He grits his teeth. This is probably the angriest I've ever seen him, I definitely hit a nerve. In less than a second, I suddenly fly into the nearby wall. "Oh sure, throw me around all you want, in the end, nothing changes, your great military mind was still beaten by a bunch of kids, twice." Giegue's eyes are glowing red, and he's surrounded by a red aura. "You had to have had a family once, Didn't you have a family once?" I ask him, he puts me down gently.

"Yes." He replies quietly. "I had Steven's parents and... Giegue's too. Why? Where are you going with this?" He crosses his arms.

"If you ever had a family, you should know how important family is."

"It's not that simple..."

"What? Did they not love you?" He looks up at me. "Oh wow, don't tell me your parents on both sides were worthless."

"Don't say that. You don't know anything." He says quietly.

"That's it isn't it? Both of your familes were worthless."

"Shut up." He says a bit louder.

"Just say it, you don't want Lucas to have a family because you never had one! That's it, isn't it? You're jealous of Lucas, who has had a real family at one point. In the end, your just like Pokey, if you don't get something, no one does! Is that it? It is isn't it?" I press on, I think I finally have him figured out.

"SHUT UP!" I suddenly lift up off the floor, and slam into a nearby wall, it was paintfully apparent that he was using PSI. "Stop talking like you know everything, you don't!" He yelled as he smashed me into the floor repeatedly. You don't know shit! Just SHUT UP!" He yells as he slams me into a wall. "Unless you want to die, you'd be wise not to bring George and Maria up again." George and Maria? Who are they? "I can reduce you to dust in a second, my PSI is an entire century ahead of yours. Killing you wouldn't even be hard." He continues to stare at me, using his PSI to hold me up higher against the wall, we must've stayed this this for at least a few minutes

"Giegue!" Paula's voice rings out. "Stop it!" He stops the PSI, allowing me to drop to the ground. Yes! Poo must've heard my call, becuase here he was with Paula.

"Clever bastard, you called your buddies during that whole thing. I must've been too mad to notice. That's pretty lucky of you, I could've blocked that transmission, If I noticed it." Paula then wordlessly walks up to Giegue. "Huh? What is it Pau-"

A slap echoes throughout the house. Giegue's looking away completely dumbfounded, he slowly brings his hand to his cheek, which now has a crimson hand print, courtesy of Paula. Without warning, his whole house starts to shake violently, knocking things over. After a few minutes, he sighs and turns away, stopping the shaking.

"You all should probably leave." He mutturs. "I need to clean this place up, and I really don't think you want to be around me right now." Without a word, Poo grabbed our hands and telported us away.


	7. Black Blood

*INTERLUDE 1: Black Blood*

My name is Teddy, ex gangster and part time karaoke singer, don't ask. You could say that I've had a pretty interesting life, I had a hand in saving the world four years ago, i've been through a rough ride in terms of what I had to do to become a gang leader, and as of two weeks ago, I came back from a wild ride that took me about 200 years in to the future, naturally, I got back to my own time in the end. I've been through stuff that would sound like some real bad trips to some people I know. Anyway, it's only been two weeks and I'm already head first in another problem. Someone is trying to send a message to me, someone is running around, beating up members of my old gang, now, I know I retired from the gang life, but my friends didn't, I still know a lot of people from my old gang. So when someone is running around beating up my friends to a pulp, I have to step in.

The funny thing is that the guy beating on my guys actually called me out, I didn't see him, but apparently he wrote 'Teddy meets me at warehouse.' in spray paint right outside the B.B hideout. So, I might as well go check it out, I've fought enough weird stuff with Ninten to deal with a lot of things, even some PSI users. I decided not to bring my katana to this little meet and greet. I don't think I'll need it, as I said, the little adventure left me off as a better fighter than most. So, I'm almost at the warehouse, time to see who the hell this guy is. I have a few guesses to who it is, B.B has a done some work with cops to get other gangs out of the picture, no we aren't rats, we just did some work with cops to eliminate a common enemy. It's completely different...

"We?" I say to myself, sometimes I catch myself talking about the gang like I'm still in it. I'm not, but sometimes I like to remember the fun times I had with them, I like to remember the raids, the power, and the money, oh god, the money! I'll tell you this much, I definetly wasn't poor when I was with them. I sigh as I approach the door to the abandoned warehouse. Time to go in.

I step inside the abandoned warehouse, the lights are on, but nobody's here. "Come on! Where are you? I'm here!" I yell out. No answer... I turn towards the door.

"Wait." A female voice calls out to me, but it's not just any female voice, it's Ana's.

"Huh? Ana, Is that you? What the hell are you doing here?" I ask as I turn around, Ana's not here.

"Go up the stairs, I'll tell you everything." I quietly do as she says and make my way up the stairs. "Good, nice and obedient." Huh? What's that all about? As I finally make my way up the stairs I see Ana, but this time she's wearing something very different than usual. Instead of her little Pink dress, she was wearing a black leather jacket and a pair of ripped jeans, her hair, which was usually done in pig tails, was now done in a long pony tail tied up with a black ribbon, I didn't know Ana's hair could get so long, her hair usually goes down to her shoulders, her hair now goes down to her lower back now. . "Hi, Teddy. I trust you've been doing well."

"Not really. Look, what's is this about? All of my friends have been put in the hospital in the past week, Do you have any idea how that feels?"

"I'm not sure, I was just trying to get your attention." Wh-Wh-What?

"Wait! What the hell do you mean by that?" I start to yell.

"I. Was. Trying. To. Get. Your. Attention. So. I. Jumped. Your. Friends." She replies smugly "What? Was that too hard for the big dumb gangster to understand?" This is ridiculous.

"Oh OK! I get it, HA! HA! HA!" I replay sarcastically. "So what? Did Ninten put you up to saying this to take my mind off of things?"

"The asthmatic idiot with anger issues?" She laughs to herself. "No way. I don't know what... I saw in him." This definently isn't right, There has to be something that I'm not getting here. "You're an idiot. Looks like I have to explain this in a way a savage like you will understand." She walks up to me. "It's a shame, you should've brought your katana. Perhaps you would've had more of a chance." She shrugs. "Well, on with the show." She says as she drives her fist into my stomach.

"Guh! What the hell are you doing, Ana?" She wordlessly punches me in the face. Without a second thought, she grabs me by the collar of my shirt and throws me down the stairs. As I take my tumble, I get the feeling that someone, or something is watching us, well, that's not important, I have bigger things to worry about. When I finally hit the floor, I shoot back up as fast as I can. I gaze up the stairs, Ana cracks her neck as she slowly walks down the stairs.

"Reagan." She says quietly.

"What do you mean 'Reagan'?" I say as I gather myself.

"Simple, I need a name, Reagan sounds like a nice one to use, So I'm just sounding it out, testing out how it feels." She cracks her neck. "No more talking, you better start fighting back, 'cause I'm going to kill you now." With one last crack of her neck, she started running down the stairs as fast as she could, Looks like we're doing this thing. As soon as she jumps down, I take a swing at her face, she effortlessly dodges underneath it because of the big height difference between us. Ana then tries to punch me again, only this time, I manage to grab her arm and toss her away.

"Why are you doing this, Ana?"

"I thought I told you." She groans as she starts walking to me, once she gets close enough to me, she kicks me in the chest as hard as she could, the sheer force of it knocks the wind out of me. How the hell is she so strong? "NO. MORE. TALKING." She says sternly. I catch myself as I'm about to fall. Without warning, she grabs me by the collar of my shirt and headbutts me, the force of the impact makes me take a few steps back, and judging by the slimy feeling I'm feeling on my upper lip, I think she broke my nose, or at least made it bleed... As soon as I collect myself, I lunge at her as fast as I can, the gloves are off now, if she wants a fight, she's got one. As soon as I get to her, I aim a punch right at her head, she casually moves her head out of the way. I spit out blood, I look down to realise that she drove her knee into my sternum. My legs start to give out, I begin to fall forward, then, something unthinkable happened. She gently put her finger under my chin and somehow stopped my fall, not only that, but she then put a little power behind her finger and started to lift me up to an upright posiition! How the hell? She's like, half of my size! She took one deep breath as she then cupped my chin and threw me into a wall. "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" She taunts.

"Go fuck yourself." I shoot back as I charge at her again. Instead of the punch she was expecting, I instead kick her in the inside of her knee, making her fall down on one knee, as soon as she's hunched over I knee her in the face as hard as I can. "Are we done? I don't know what came over you Ana, but It's time to end this now."

"Ooooh boy!" She yells out. "You cut open my lip! You're going to get it for that one." She says as she gets up. "You're going to pay for that one!" She grunts as she wipes the blood of her lip.

"Hmph, send me the bill!" I yell at her as I aim a punch at her face. She catches it effortlessly, I desperately try to punch her with my other hand, only she stopped that one too. "Tsk, Tsk, what I wouldn't do for a little bit of chivary. That's going to cost you a few ribs." She spreads my arms apart and knees me in the stomach, the impact knocks me over, as soon as I hit the floor, she stomps on my solarplexus as hard as she can. I feel a few crunches in my torso. "ARRRRGHH! *Cough* *Cough*" I start coughing out blood, now I don't know much about how the human body works, but I know that's not healthy.

"Hmm, I just smashed four of your ribs and you're still cracking jokes? I can respect that." I muster what's left of my strength and drag myself to a nearby wall. "Look, don't take this personally, I really didn't want to do this, but my master demands it. Sweet dreams, Teddy." She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment. After a minute, she aimed one last kick right at my face, a brief view of her shoe followed by pitch black was the last thing I saw.

* * *

Little did Teddy know, a certain humanized alien with an identity crisis was watching the whole thing in his sleep. He certainly needed to ask a few more questions, on top of the ones he needed the answers for, a life of an humanized alien is never easy.

But was he really the only one watching?


	8. School Days

We end up back in Onett.

"Thanks for getting me out of there gu-" *SMACK!* Without a word, Paula slaps me across the face. "What the hell was that for!" I yell at her. What? Does she just feel like slapping everyone today?

"That's for being a jerk to us earlier, as well as getting Giegue mad! You know we need all the allies we can get at a time like this!" She puts her arms to her sides and pouts, since our adventure, I've dubbed this as Paula's scolding mother look. She always does this when we're doing something bad. She does it to Jeff when he smokes, and she does it when Poo trains too hard.

"That wasn't even my fault, I was just telling him the truth! Plus, you should know how easy it is to get him mad!"

"Ness, you don't understand, he looked like he was about to KILL you!" Paula shakes me by the shoulders. "He's never been that angry at any of us before! You had to have said something to tick him off!"

"I didn't do much, I just responded to something he said. He said that Lucas and his family could die for all he cares."

"Ness, you have to understand that not everyone will be fighting for the same reason as you."

"I wouldn't mind is it was just that! I'm pissed because he doesn't even have a reason, he's hunting Pokey just because he feels like it."

"That's probably not true." Poo spoke up. "I don't know much, because he doesn't allow his mind to be read often, and any deep thoughts are near impossible to find. But I can feel a deep sense of regret from him. I don't know what, but it feels like he wants to atone for something. There's no point in asking him, though, he'll just laugh it off and call us crazy." Poo stated "However, no matter the reasons, what he did was dangerous, we should take some time away from him so both parties involved can relax and think this through.

"Right." Paula agrees. "I hope this blows over soon."

"I couldn't agree more." Poo says while nodding. "Giegue is a powerful ally, I hope that you two make amends." Right! Making amends... As much as I hate Giegue he was right about one thing

"Uh, Poo? Could you leave? I kinda need to tell Paula something, alone." Poo nods in understanding before using teleport Omega and disappearing

"Ness? If this is about the slap I gave you, I'm sorry but I needed to-"

"No! No... Look, you shouldn't be sorry. I was being real harsh earlier, I know I've been using Pokey as an excuse, but that's not a reason to excuse the way I acted, look, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I know I sound like a broken record, but I've been through a lot, although, I think I'm being a big baby now."

"N-No!" She interuptted, clearly flustered. "I understand completely. No one should have to go through what you did, you did go through a lot, I shouldn't have, pushed you so much." I grab her hands, she flinches slightly at the sudden contact.

"No, you're not at fault here, It's all me, you guys are great friends, I really shouldn't have made you cry, I'm sorry, I'm really horrible for that. I'm really lucky to have friends like you guys, I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you guys, after what happened I-I-" My vision starts to get blurry, I feel a huge pit in my throat.

"You don't have to talk about it, Ness, I understand." She hugs me. After a minute, I gently push her away.

"Alright, enough of that, anyway, I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, not cry in your arms like a little baby, this goes without saying, but please don't tell anyone, especially Giegue." The last thing I want to do is show weakness around Giegue, he's the kind of guy that would always heckle me about it, It's really not a good idea to let him see any weakness of mine.

"My lips are sealed." She smiles. "Well, I have to go home now, I have a lot of explaining to do with my dad, see you at school." Right, I've been balancing school with finding Pokey, the weekend is just finishing up, I have to go to school tommorow, luckily, I only have about 3 weeks of school left. I smile to Paula as I turn to walk home. I have to make sure to get myself together for school tommorow.

* * *

As I wake up, I notice quite a bit of things about this morning. My mouth is dry, my eyes are sore, I need a fuckin' smoke, and my head feels like it's about to split in two. "Good god!" I groan. I bring my hand to my face, with my hand on my face, I slowly open my eyes, at first, I see a large cloud of red, but that clears up quickly, the pain in my eyes goes away soon after. "What the hell?" As I get a closer look at my hand, I notice a thin crack running along my forearm to my palm. Slowly, I run my finger along the crack, sure enough, my finger manages to sink in a bit. I quickly pull my finger away. "OK then, maybe there's a few more side effects to the merge than I thought..." That's really creepy, well, I'll just hide it away for the moment and then I'll go check it out if it doesn't heal up, after all, she said she was clean! "Hehehehe..." I'm a funny guy, to myself anyway. "Well." I say as I get ready for my morning training.

"Alright then!" I yell out to psyche myself up. I quickly move to my closet and change into a pair of boxing shorts. After a few stretches I move my way to the basement. My basement has three parts to it, one part is my game room, It has stuff like arcade machines and a pool table. The second part is my training room, it has a boxing ring and a punching bag. The third part is hidden. It consists of Gian tech, as well as schematics for quite a bit of my machines. Obviously, I'm going to train so, I'm heading to my training room. I slowly tape my fingers up and move over to the punching bag. With a sigh I begin. I control my breathing and focus on the light packing sounds my fists are making. After a few minutes, my mind goes somewhere else, I begin to see memories from a long time ago.

* * *

'Take a melody.' I'm nothing but a mere infant. I'm being cradled by someone, a human.

'Simple as can be.' This human is someone I trust. Her name is Maria, she is in love with someone.

'Give it some words.' The other human Maria is in love with is named George, he's a bad person.

'And sweet harmony.' You see, George is a dirty liar. At that time, I thought he was nothing less than the paragon of his species, so when I got him to promise me not to study PSI. I thought he would listen, It was only after I was contacted by a councilman. He was the one who told me about what George had stolen. He had stolen our identity as a species, and he then had the nerve to share it with the rest of the filthy apes of his species.

Never in my life had I become so outraged. I left Maria, joined up with the high council's militia, and I trained. I trained myself to go back to earth and kill George one day. I discarded my feelings and turned my heart to steel. I didn't concern myself with anything exept training myself. I became quite popular throughout the high council. Before I knew it, I was one of the most talented children in the high council. So talented, I was allowed to join the frontlines in the Kl'Rt annexation. That was my first exposure to the horrors of war. I learned that war was a scary thing, even now, there's nothing that terrifies me more than knowing that you could instantly be plunged into a life or death battle simply because of a sudden ambush. I didn't let it show on my face, but the suddeness of war truly mortified me. I didn't let it show, I couldn't let it show because I had to be an emotional rock, for my sake, and for George's. As far as I was concerned, I had to be as strong as possible for the moment I saw George again, the way I saw it, everything I did was simply leading up to my reunion with George. The thoughts of how he would pay for his lies we're all that filled my mind for 80 human years. I focused on nothing but my self improvement for the sole sake of killing George.

My work was not overlooked by the high council. One day, I was requested to have an audience with the Grand Master of the high council. There was no greater honor I knew of. When I had met him, he told me, "Young one, I have seen your tenacity and your hope to go to earth. Well, I have extremely good news for you. We have reached an agreement with Shikass, you would know him better as The Original, the one and only leader of the Starmen people. He has agreed to send us a small scouting force of 300 Starmen out of mutual intrest in this world. You will lead an expeditionary force to observe the PSI growth of the human species, the main objective of your mission is to retrieve a few humans as specimens. Our scientists wish to study their relation and ability to use PSI. Your secondary objective is to set up a small base within the human world, if possible. I have given it much thought, I have chosen you over the older soliders. While you are still a child; not even a century old, I am quite confident in your abilites to complete this mission. Remember, you will be the sole representative of the Gian people on this mission. Do not fail me. You are dissmissed."

I remember that as one of the happiest moments of my life. I could barely contain myself. I quickly left the room and got ready. 80 years. 80 years I had waited for this moment. Even as I was on my way to earth, all I could think about was killing George, It was like the entire mission was second place to this. However, I forgot to learn one extremely important fact. The lifespan of humans, I was so concerned with killing George, I always thought that humans lived as long as Gians. I was wrong. I was drawn to a place called Mount Itoi. I got in my walker and scouted the area around my main headquarters. As soon as I went outside, I saw a tombstone, upon reading the tombstone, my breath hitched in my throat. I couldn't see anything but the tombstone in front of me, I prayed it wasn't so, but I knew I was only deluding myself. George had died.

It was at this moment where I learned quite a few things. The first thing was that, human lifespans are pathetic compared to a Gian's. The second was that it seems that I still had some sort of attaction to him. The third was probably the biggest eye opener for me. Life is just one dark comedy. Part of me found it quite amusing. His death made me feel like I had lost a father of mine. The amusing part was that he was in a way. To my understanding, a father is someone who helps mold their child into something that the next generation could be proud of. He did all that for me, all the things I became was because of my drive to meet George again. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even be close to what I am today.

The lulaby falls upon deaf ears. Now all that remains is a husk who is trying to fight with the same vigor he had before. I had felt betrayed at that moment for some reason, Every now and then, I wonder if that same feeling of betrayal had somehow warped into resentment after the merge. It doesn't really matter anymore.

* * *

When I get out of my little dream, I realise I'm not even properly punching the bag anymore.

I sigh, I really messed up yesterday with Ness. Why do I become such a sad sap whenever George and Maria are even implied, It's ridiculous, I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me apologizing to him, I guess I'm still childish like that. Whatever, It doesn't really change anything, in the end, Ness and I are still not friends, and we don't agree with the other's lifestyle, he thinks I'm a concieted; womanizing, manipulative, asswipe, and I think that he's an angsty moron who really needs to get laid. It's as simple as that, we can't, and won't ever be able to stand the other's presence, it's been like that for two years, and It'll continue. But still, I can't stand that attitude of his sometimes! It's so damn righteous! My shower was a quick one today, I look back at my forearm, the crack isn't there, interesting, I'll have to look into that the next time I get it. Hmm I feel like meeting up with Mona today. I wonder if she's at school? It is a monday, after all. Only one way to find out.

"Let's see." I say as I use mass telepathy to find her thoughts, after a minute, I get it! "Nice!" 1289 Bayview. Alright then! I now have something to do! Up and away! I quickly get dressed in my white suit and walk out the door. Her house isn't too far from where I first met her. I manage to get to her house in about 15 minutes. Now, your probably asking, 'Why is he going to the house of a girl he just met?' Well, reader, I don't have many friends. It's not that I can't get any, OK, well it kinda is. Unfortunately, the people of Summers can be as boring as they come. They don't interest me. Mona's different, she is someone who I can talk to, she's interesting. "Well, let's do this." I say to myself as I approach her front door. Without hesitation, I knock on her front door a few times, sure enough, she answers.

"Oh, hey Steven, I was actually just about to go see you." She says as she peeks out the door.

"Yeah, well, I was wondering if you had school today."

"I do." She replies. "I was actually planning on skipping."

"Oh, feeling rebelious, are we?" I laugh to myself.

"Yes, I'm feeling extremely rebellious. I'm going to skip school to hang out with a boy, that's pretty rebelious, don't you think?"

"Yes, actually, I think that's extremely rebellious." This conversation has to end now.

"Well, let's get going like the rebels we are. Your house?" My house, huh? "I've never seen your house before, I want to see what kind of high class house you have

"Sure, why not? Follow me. I'll warn you though, my house is boring, I don't have a bowling alley in my bathroom or anything. I don't even have a garage; well, I don't think I do..." I motion for her to follow me. As I've said, my house is a good 15 minutes away, might as well try to start a decent conversation. "So, tell me, Miss Mona."

"What's up?" I give her a good look. Something is definetly off about her, and It's not just her PSI...

"Tell me about yourself. You dress like a middle class person, but you have to be rich to live in this area. What's your story?"

"Ah yes, well, you see. My dad is a contract assassin, he kills people for money, mainly politicians, they're very expensive targets. 'nothing pays like putting a bullet between the eyes of some fat politician!' He always used to tell me that." I stare at her with a solid expression, she sighs. "That was a joke, obviously not a very funny one either..." She looks away for a moment. "Well, my dad is a writer, he's written a quite few sellers, he had always loved going here for vacation, so when he got the money, it was a no brainer that he would move here. Before this, we used to live in Fourside.

"Fourside, huh? As great as this place is, I don't think it's a good idea to leave Fourside for this."

"Well, why not? This place has gourmet restaurants and beaches as far as the eye could see."

"Fourside has just as much gourmet restaurants as this place and..." I pause for a moment. "...Venus." I check my mouth to make sure I don't suddenly start drooling.

"Pfft. Venus isn't a good reason. It's just Venus, who cares? She just some bimbo in a black dress, I fail to see how anybody can like her."

"That's not true. You're only saying that because you're a girl." I retort. "Venus is actually a really nice person, but almost all the girls I know hate her because she's a lot prettier than them, or something like that..."

"How would you know that? It's not like you know her or anything..."

"Bzzt, wrong. I do, actually." Her mouth falls agape.

"No way. You know Venus?" She raised an eyebrow

"Yup, very well, actually. We're actually on a first name basis."

"Wow, I'm impressed, did you... You know... Have your... fun?" She asks while blushing.

"What? NO! She's like, 20!" Wow, just yesterday I had the same conversation with Ness about it being okay to sleep with someone who was 26. Contradictions of the self are amusing.

"I see..." She replies, deep in thought about something. We arrive at my front door.

"Well, welcome to Casa Steven!" I say as I let her in.

"Oh wow." She said as she looked around. "I thought you said this place wasn't very interesting. It looks great."

"You're joking. This looks like an average house."

"If you say so." She frowned.

"Well, I'll show you around." I motion for her to follow me. Well, after I showed her around, we talked for a while. She took a liking to the basement, I wonder why? Either way, we talked about random crap for a few hours when I looked at the time, it turns out we were hanging around for the entire day. Time flies.

"Well, I have to go." She spoke up after all our time. "I actually do have to go to school tommorow, and I'm going to assume you do too." I shake my head.

"Nope, I haven't gone to school past grade 4." I tell her the truth.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. I don't need to go to school, I'm as smart as I need to be. Anything I need to learn, I just read the mind of someone who knows it. It's not too hard."

"You are so lucky, you don't even have an education, and money's being practically handed to you."

"That's not true, the stock market is a tough business!" I retort, not going to tell her about PSI's ability to see the future. Definetly, not going to tell her about how I'm using that ability to see when a stock is going to rise or fall. She might not go along with that.

"Please, you go and make a few bold decisions and you're done, I bet you couldn't survive high school." She folds her arms.

"Oh really? You seriously don't think that I could go to high school? I think I'll take you up on that offer. I'll go to high school, and I'll pass it with flying colors."

"Oh, that's cute, but you're forgetting something. Your need a few more years of school before you can even think about high school."

"I don't need it."

"Even if that was true, the school board wouldn't agree with you." She looks like she's about to burst out laughing.

"You don't know me very well." I smirk.

"Whatever, I have to go. Bye, genius." She giggles as she walks out the door.

"I'll show you." I smirk as I get ready to teleport. I have some work to do and some non-belivers to take care of.

* * *

I'm seeing a dream, it's nothing I haven't seen before. It's the same old dream I've had for about 4 years now.

"NESS." He calls out to me in the same demonic roar he always spoke in.

"IT HURTS." Even now, I have no idea what's he's talking about, what hurts? It's not like he'll tell me now. He's dead, or supposed to be anyway.

"LET'S BE FRIENDS!" Are you kidding me? Do you think I'll be friends with you after seeing all the graveyards you've filled?

"I FEEL HAPPY." I wonder why? It didn't matter then, I had much more important things to worry about. Like how the fate of the entire world rested on the backs of a few twelve year olds. It was the most horrifying thing I've seen up until then. His forms wavered, If you looked at it one way, It was a bunch of faces. If you looked at it another way, It was a fetus. No matter what way you look at it, the figure was a horrifying sight, especially if it was trying to kill you with everything it had. Thankfully, I was in a robot body, If I wasn't, I probably wouldn't be able to hide my fear. I could feel it at the time, even Poo was unnerved by the horrible sight in front of him. None of us were prepared to deal with that, and we took down mulitple krakens in the same day.

"NESS." Leave me alone.

"NESS." Dissapear.

"NESS. NESS. NESS." He started to say it more and more, as if he really wanted my attention. I turned him down.

"NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS. NESS." Before I knew it, It was the only thing it would say, It was like the only thing it knew how to say. At the time, I thought that It was trying to scare me further. But the more I think about it now. I think he was really just trying to reach out to me. As Paula continued to pray, his voice became far more pained, he started to call my name more frequently. Looking back at it, I think he just wanted me to make the pain stop.

"NESS!" Shut up. I thought as Paula let out one final prayer.

"ARRRROOUUUUUUGHHHH!" He screamed out in the most horrifying scream I had ever heard, and with that, he was gone as suddenly as he came. It was over, I would be able to live happily, or so I thought.

"Ness." It's not the same person. This was my mother talking. It seems I've fast fowarded a few years. I'm now at the time when Pokey escaped and set my house on fire.

"Guys, you don't need to say anything. I'm just glad you all survived the fire." I hugged them tightly.

"That's not entirely true. You see, in the fire-

I wake up to the familiar sound of my alarm clock. This can only mean on thing. It's Tuesday morning and I have to go to school. Great. I slowly get up out of bed and stretch. With a yawn I get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom, It seem that no matter what happens, I am never a morning person, that's one thing I can never change.

"Morning big bro." My sister calls out to me.

"Morning Trace, You sleep well?" I ask her while rubbing my eyes.

"Yep." She nods.

"Good to hear, because the bathroom is MINE!" I say as I dash to the bathroom.

"Oh come on! Neeeeeeeeeesss!" She pleads. "You always get to go to the bathroom first!"

"That's because you take too long!" I call back to her. I clear my thoughts as I take my shower. I have another long day of school ahead of me. I don't know how it happened, but I somehow became that weak kid. I don't know why, but the football team feels the need to bother 'that one kid who likes baseball.' I could destroy them all without even blinking, but no. Paula insists that I just deal with it, I seriously don't get it, one minute, I'm saving the world, the next minute, I'm forced to pay a toll to use the bathroom. It's funny how that works. I quickly get dressed and make my way to school. It takes me about five minutes to get there. When I get there, I'm greeted with a very interesting sight. One of the members of the football team was on his knees with a big nosebleed. I ignore it and walk inside, It's not worth my time anyway.

"Morning, Mr. Happy!" Paula calls out to me from behind.

"Morning Paula, how are you doing?" I turn to her.

"I'm doing fine, you?"

"Not good, I had another dream about 'you know who.'"

"Ness, you don't have to worry about that, It's over, and 'you know who' is on our side now."

"That's true but..." I look down for a moment, suddenly finding the floor very facinating. "Well, It's not important. Class is about to start soon, Let's go." Paula and I have first period together, that would be english. As we enter the class, we say goodbye and go to our respective seats, we sit pretty far from each other, Paula sits by the door, and I sit by the window on the other side of the room. With nothing better to do, I look out the window.

"Class." The teacher's shril voice rings out. "I know it's strange, but we have a new student." What? A new student?

"Miss, there's three weeks of school left!" A student states the obvious.

"Thank you, I am aware of that. Anyway, here's our new student! You can come in now!" I hear Paula gasp. Oh no. I turn my head to the new student. There he was. Messy brown hair combed backwards, white T-shirt, blue jeans, that damn hyena grin that's always plastered on his face.

"Hey guys, my name's Steven. I know it's rather late, but I promise I'll be the best student I can be, or something like that."

"What the hell?"


	9. School Days PART 2

I'm sorry, but what the hell kind of plot twist is this? Why is he here? Why? Why? WHY?

'For the love of god, do you really hate me that much?' He asks me the most obvious question in the world.

'YES!'

'Oh, well, whatever. Are you still mad about the whole thing at my house? You shouldn't be, Paula and I made up. We're friends again.'

"That doesn't count for anything, you idiot! Paula's just like that." The entire class turns to stare at me. I look back at Giegue and see him smirking. Oh no, did I just say that out loud? I take another look at Giegue, who is now nodding. Shit... "Sorry, it just slipped out." I manage to say despite the embarassment.

'Nice one, Ness! You really know how to have a telepathic conversation, don't you?'

'Just shut up.'

'I'm suprised you didn't say that one out loud either.'

'Fuck off.' I grunt mentally.

'Whatever.' He rolls his eyes. "Anyway." He begins out loud. "As I was saying, my name is Steven, and I'm here to learn and all that. I'm new to this whole thing, so please be kind to me." He twiddles his thumbs.

'Why are you here?' I ask him

'Because I love you and I want to kiss you all over.' What the hell? 'You do realise that I haven't been to school since the fourth grade, right? I wanted to have the experience of going to high school. I'm going to play for a school sports team and pick up cheerleaders!' He says with extreme excitement.

'You'll change your mind about highschool once you realise that all the cheerleaders are dating football players.'

'Oh, I don't really care, I've gotten girls to cheat before. It's not that hard. It's as simple as finding some dumb whore with daddy issues.' My eyes became slits as I shot a glare at him. 'OK, it's not that easy, it requires a certain level of charisma too, that's why guys like Jeff can't do it. Seriously, it's like fuckin' rocket science to them.'

"So tell us about yourself, Steven." The teacher asks him.

"Well, I'm a relatively simple guy. I like Street Fighter, Hockey, Boxing, and I also have an interest in trying baseball, but I can't play it for the life of me." I can't help but quirk my eyebrow at that. I never knew that he liked Street Fighter or Baseball. Someone in the back of the class raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Why are you here so late? There's only three weeks of school left."

"I transferred here." He answers quickly.

"From where?"

"Northside Heights." I hear a few people gasp.

"Are you from Cinqtopolis?" One student calls out.

"Yeah, I'm from Rangers country!" Awkward silence. "You know, Cinqtopolis Rangers? The hockey team that doesn't exist anymore?" He sighs. "Nevermind. Damn that Steve Tucker!"

"OK Then, Let's see where you are going to sit..." The teacher pauses in thought. The teacher then gives me a good look and I know what she is going to do.

"I got it, how about you sit next to Ne-"

"Excuse me, Miss." I hear Paula pipe up. "I can introduce the new kid, the guy that sits beside me cheats of my tests anyway."

"What? No I don't!" The kid whined. A quick glare from everyone in the class let him know that he needed to shut up.

"OK Then." She turns to Giegue. "Why don't you sit beside Paula?"

"I'd love to." He says with a smirk. 'Hey madam.' He calls out to her psychically. 'Did my irresistible charm work on you so soon?'

'No, it didn't. I just think it's good idea to keep you away from Ness, just in case you try to kill each other.' Smart. Good move, Paula.

'Shut up, Ness.' Giegue says quickly, like he has the right to tell me to shut up in my own thoughts. 'Anyway, I wouldn't kill Ness, Nah, I'm more mature than that.' I mentally snort.

'I wouldn't snort, Ness. I actually have to agree with Giegue.' What? 'He's very mature, if anyone is gonna snap and attack someone, my money's on you, Ness.' This can't be happening...

'Don't take it too hard, at least you're not Ninten, that kid has some anger issues.'

'No! No! NO! How is he not going to snap and attack someone, need I remind you that he used PSI to throw me against a wall?'

'You instigated that, and you know you did.' He shot back.

'All I did was bring up your lack of a family.' I retort.

'Which is a touchy subject for me!'

'Well maybe if you- *SLAM*

A frighteningly loud slam echoed throughout the classroom, the entire class turned to the source of the noise. Paula's hand was balled into a fist and shaking on her desk. "Sorry, I saw a disgusting looking bug." She smiled. 'Both of you, shut up! I made sure you two were split up to avoid this exact thing. Please, just shut up.'

'Well, since you asked so nicely.'

'Hey, I got a question for you, Giegue.' I hear a groan from Paula's side of the room. 'Why can I hear your conversation?'

'Because I'm allowing you to. As egotistical as it sounds, It's the truth. What I did was put us all in a psychic terminal, think of it as a PSI conference call, if you will.'

'OK then, but we're not friends. Why do you feel the need to involve me in these conversations?'

'Because there's no real need to hide anything from each other. Ness, we may not like each other, but we have to accept the fact that we're allies against Pokey, even if we don't agree on our reasons, allies can't hide anything from each other. If I have to have private conversations in the event of a possible traitor, I will. Though, I doubt any of you will betray me to help Pokey. I can't see any of you doing that.'

'True, to be honest, I can't see you betraying us to help Pokey either.'

'I'll take that as a complement. I assume that I have your complete trust then?'

'Don't push it, buddy.' I snap at him. 'I'm sure you don't completely trust me either.'

I hear a faint chuckle from him. 'You really can cut the tension between us with a knife, hm?' I get the feeling that he's grinning. 'Do you think we'll ever have that kind of bond that you have with the rest of the chosen four?' As I'm about to reply, he speaks up. "Miss, may I go to the bathroom?"

"OK then, but you have to raise your hand to speak, please remember that next time. Ness, please show him around."

"Alright then, miss." I grunt as we both rise from our seats, as I make my way to Giegue, I can't help but make eye contact with Paula.

'Please don't kill each other.' She looks on with concern.

'We won't.'

'Promise?'

'I promise.' I tell her as I walk out to the halls with Giegue. As we leave the classroom my mind goes to the question he just asked me in class. I might as well give him his answer. "Hey." He turns to look at me. "About your question..."

"Forget it." He says abruptly.

"What? I have your answer."

"It's not important. As long as we can count on each other, how we feel about the other is insignificant, as long we can get the job done. Now, on to more important matters, where's the can?"

"Follow me. But, I don't know if you want to go at this time."

"And why would I not want to go at this time?"

"There's Biff."

"Biff?"

"Yeah, he's the star quarterback of our football team. Overall, he's a big bully, he usually hangs out by the guys room with his buddies as this time." I explain to him.

"Seriously? Why? Do they like watching guys piss?" I can't help but chuckle.

"Not exactly. You see, this place has a bathroom toll at this time."

"Seriously? Why don't you just run in there and beat the shit out of them? I'm sure you can."

"Well, It would raise too many questions, for starters." He raised an eyebrow. "Well, you see, I'm not some big tough guy with PSI here. When I'm at school I'm just some shy kid who likes baseball, nothing more, nothing less."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." He grunts. "How can you just act below yourself like that?"

"Because I'm not like you." I reply, my words dripping with contempt. "I saved the world from eternal darkness. I don't have anything to prove to anyone."

"More like you lost the desire to." He mutters as we approach the bathroom.

"What was that?"

"Ever since what happened with Pokey, you've been a very different person." He says. "What happened to the Ness that fought gangsters for the fun of it?"

"He grew up, now drop it."

"Hm... So he did." He says in deep thought. "Well whatever, I'm going to teach those morons a lesson." I sigh.

"Do whatever you want. I really don't give a shit." He smirks.

"Very well, then. Feast your eyes on this." He says as he walks over to the bathroom. Sure enough, Biff was standing there with his friends, waiting to find some kid to gang up on. "Hey... Biff, was it? Aren't you the guy I punched this morning?" Oh, so that was his doing, I should have known.

"That was a fluke hit and you know it, punk!" His friends nod in agreement.

"Seriously? I'll break your teeth in without even trying, and if your buddies want to join in, I'll gladly break their teeth in too." Some laughs were heard. "But, I'm not in the mood, so I have a better idea." Suddenly, a huge amount of PSI gathered around Giegue. What the hell is he doing with all that power? He doesn't need that for these guys! "Ever heard of a brain slushie?" The bullies were completely captivated by Giegue. "It's when you set off a big PSI attack, but you modify the size and power, so it fits inside their head. Then, boom!" He slowly raises his glowing red finger to Biff's head.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing!"

"You know, I hear watching grey matter leak out of someone's ears is rather amusing to watch."

"Giegue! Stop it now!"

"Make me, bitch." He replies calmly. I step forward and charge up all of my PSI power. "Hm." I hear him chuckle. "HaHaHaHaHaHa! AhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" He begins to laugh. "I can't believe how serious you are sometimes! You really need to lighten up, man!" He says as he continues to chuckle. "I'm bored, all five of you ladies will fight for my amusement." He directs to the bullies.

"Yes, Master Giygas." They all said in unison. They then proceeded to fight each other.

"Hey! Don't call me that! Call me Steven instead!" They all stop fighting.

"Yes, Master Steven." They then continued to fight each other.

"What?" Was all that I managed to say.

"Domination is fun." He grins while wiping the tears from his eyes. "Seriously, you should try to learn it sometime. I can guarantee you that many laughs will be had. Now if you'll excuse me." He whistles an upbeat tune as he passes by the brawl he somehow created. He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. "Now then." He directs to the five bullies, as soon as he raises his voice, they all stop fighting.. "You will now give me your cigarettes if you have any."

"We don't smoke, master."

"Seriously? Whatever, buy me a pack a Belmonts." He shrugs before looking at Biff. "You, give me your jacket." Biff quickly takes off his leather jacket and gives it to Giegue. "Thanks man, continue your fight outside. You are all forbidden to stop until all but one of you are knocked out. You will give me the smokes at lunch."

"Yes, Master Steven." They all said in unison as they made their way outside.

"What's going on out here?" A teacher calls out, she must heard all the commotion. Suddenly, I feel Giegue use a bit of PSI.

"Nothing happened. You didn't see anything, go back to your classroom." The teacher pauses for a moment before turning around and making her way to the classroom. "So yeah, domination is fun."

"What is it?" I ask.

"It's what happens when you take telepathy a step further. Instead of simply listening to people's thoughts. You can alter them. This allows you to do stuff like convince a pacifist to be a serial killer. You can alter people's thoughts to make stuff they would never do seem like a good idea."

"Is that what you do to make girls sleep with you?"

"Heh, that was harsh, but no. Believe it or not, but the ladies find me attractive."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Well, like it's said in Naruto, believe it." The air in the hallway went frigid for a moment.

"What was that?"

"Oh, I probably pissed off the author again." I roll my eyes. "Anyway. I think you're just jealous of my life, man." I can't help but snort.

"Pfft. As if. The only reason I don't have the same lifestyle as you is because my parents taught me to be a gentleman." He lets out a chuckle.

"Please, you say that now, but if Venus or Claudia did a strip tease in front of you, and then either one of them told you to 'take them.' You don't think you would respond? Face it Ness, chivalry is overrated."

"What makes you think I was ever attracted to hips girl?"

"Please, who isn't attracted to hips girl? Why do you think she always has to remind people not to stare at her hips? Here's a hint, it's not because people are trying to look away from them. Plus I could always read thoughts people's minds from anywhere, even when I was insane, I know what you thinking when you got on that elevator for the first time. Mr. Gentleman." He smirks. Damn. I can't help but recall the first time I saw hips girl on that elevator. "Feeling lust is human, no matter who you are, or what you were taught."

"But if that's true. Why isn't everyone in the world more like you."

"Because while feeling lust is human; like feeling any other emotion, how people choose to act upon it is what makes them individuals."

"That was very thought provoking." I say sarcastically. "You're still an asshole though."

"Indeed I am, good sir. Indeed I am." He says while nodding. As I look forward, I notice that our classroom is in sight.

"Well, it looks like were going to have to cut this conversation short." I say to him as we approach the classroom.

"Very well then." He says as we enter our classroom. As soon as we enter, the teacher looks at us.

"Where have you two been for so long?"

"That Ness guy decided it would be a good idea to show me around the school, you know, just to get me acquainted with the place."

"Oh, that was very nice of you, Ness. However, class is over now." The teacher motions towards everyone getting their books.

"Alright then." Giegue speaks up before looking around for a certain someone. "Hey, you! Nord!" He walks up to the nerdy kid in the front of the class. Nord?

"Who? Me?" The 'nord' he was talking to replied. I know him, he's Garth, the smartest kid in my class.

"Yes you. You're a nord, right?" Giegue points at him as we all walk out of the class and into the hallway.

"I think you mean 'nerd', Steven." I point out to him.

"Nerd? Oh yeah! It is nerd! Where the hell did I get 'nord' from? Aw crap!" He rests his face against his palm for a moment. "Well, whatever, anyway, nerd. Do you want this leather jacket I found?" I feel my eye twitch. Is he serious?

"Sure..." Garth replies hesitantly, as he should. Giegue grins as he tosses him the leather jacket he got from Biff.

"Well, there you go! You should wear that, man. Impress all of your friends by dressing up like a cool kid. I'd imagine you'd get a real kick out of it the next time you're playing Gathering Magic and Dragons and Prisons!"

"Um, what?" He asks in confusion. Giegue raises an eyebrow.

"Steven, I think you mean Magic the Gathering and Dungeon and Dragons." I speak out to correct him again.

"Ohhhhhhhhh." He nods in understanding. "Damn it" He curses under his breath. "Sorry man." He says to Garth.

"Well, thanks for the jacket, I guess..." He says awkwardly. "I suppose I could pay it back to you by giving you my uncle's autograph." He raises an eyebrow, I can't help but raise an eyebrow too.

"I hate to sound rude, man, but who is your uncle and why would I want his autograph?"

"Well, you mentioned in class that you were a hockey fan. My uncle is Trevor Sindel" Who is that? It seems Giegue knows because I hear him gasp.

"S-S-S-Seriously? As in THE Trevor Sindel?" His mouth is agape. "That guy is like, my idol, man! How would you like to have a new best friend!?"

"Liar." A kid passing by them overheard their conversation. "Your uncle is a hockey player, but it's not Trevor Sindel, it's Steve Tucker." He points out, Giegue's expression then changes from complete bliss to complete fury.

"I hate you. You're a piece of shit, and so is your uncle. You can keep the damn jacket. It's probably infected with Steve Tucker germs anyway." He cringes as he gets away from Garth, and so another one of Garth's attempts to get a new friend falls flat. That's a damn shame.

"Hey." I walk up to him.

"What is it?"

"I wouldn't take what he says too seriously, that guy has been known to lie so he can get friends. He once tried to convince me that his grandpa was Shoeless John."

"Shoeless John?"

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just while you have your hockey heroes, I have my baseball heroes, too."

"Ness, I know who Shoeless John is. Wasn't he the Onett Pistons pitcher in that scandal in the 50's? You know, the one that allowed the Twoson Flyers to win the series?" My jaw falls open.

"Y-Yes! That's absolutely right! Except in the end it was proven that he-

"Really just had a bad year and wasn't a part of it at all." He finishes my sentence. I'm in shock that he knows so much, but then the common sense part of my brain kicks in.

"Wait a minute. You just read my mind to figure that out, didn't you?"

"What? You seriously think that?" He looks at me, pretending to be offended. "Whatever. Believe whatever you want. I don't care." He shakes his head as he pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Hmm, let's see here... Hey, what class do you have?"

"I have math now."

"YYYYYYEEEEESSSSS!" He drags it out for emphasis. He holds up the piece of paper. It turns out that the piece of paper was his classes, and his next class is-

"Hell yes! Gym!" I begin to celebrate as we make our way to class.

"Hey!" Someone pipes up from behind us, interrupting our victory. I look back and see a student walk up to Giegue.

"Oh god, not this kid..." Giegue says as he keeps his head down, obviously trying to avoid him. Now that he gets closer, I begin to recognize him. It's Mike.

"Hey Ness." he calls out to me.

"Hey Mike." I reply "What's up?"

"Oh nothing. I just saw Stevie over here and I had to go talk to him." Stevie? Oh this is too good! Mike happens to be one of the only guys I've seen to openly admit to people that he's gay, and he's calling Giegue by his pet name, a pet name I've only seen be used by people he's has relations with. One can only assume what happened between them at one point.

"Look man." Giegue starts talking quietly. "I didn't intend for it to go anywhere, I just wanted to experiment that one time."

"But you said that..." Mike raises an eyebrow.

"I S-A-I-D!" Giegue speaks up, clearly flustered. "We should go to class now! Ness, you're a good kid, aren't you!? Good kids aren't late to class."

"Oh no, We have about five minutes to get to class." I let out a grin not too much different from his usual one. After all, It's not often you see Giegue flustered like this. "Personally I think you two should catch up after such a long time apart, don't you think?"

"Th-There's nothing to catch up on because I totally did not kiss him that one time" Giegue shoots at me, waving his arms in the air comically.

"Kiss him? Who said anything about that?" I say casually, I didn't think it was possible, but his face turned in to a deeper shade of red.

"You and me class now!" He manages to say as he grabs me by the collar of my shirt and drags me away from Mike, I turn back and wave goodbye to Mike, before turning a corner. "Gym is this way, right?"

"Yes." I reply, my tone of voice letting on that I'm desperately trying to hold back my laughter.

"OK, Good." He lets out a sigh of relief as we stop walking. "If you say ANYTHING, about what you just heard, I'll skin you alive and I'll make your family watch!" He tries to look menacing, which it turns out is really hard when your face is as red as an apple.

"Sure, whatever you say. Stevie."

"S-Shut up!" He says as he looks away. 'So, how do you know that guy anyway?' I hear him ask me telepathically.

'Who, Mike? He's a cool guy, a great pitcher in baseball. We hung out for a bit and he told me that he was gay, I told him I really didn't see him any differently, and he's still a hell of a good pitcher, he's one of the only guys out there who can give me trouble when I step up to bat. He's cool.'

'So you don't care about his preferences?' He questions me.

'Nope, I don't see a reason to, he's still the same guy in the end. That's only how I think, though, other people aren't that nice, which is why many other people don't know, except Paula and... Well, you...' I explain to him.

'Well, then, judging from your tone, you probably want to know how I know him.' I subtly nod. 'Well, it was about a year ago. I was messing with this girl, she was cute, until she decided to leave me for another girl. Let me tell you, that kind of shit stings. I was in a crappy mood for a while until I thought 'Hey, why don't I do the same?' Well, one thing led to another, I met Mike, and well, I left because I really couldn't get into it. Contrary to all the homophobic shitstorms I was exposed to as a kid, the Steven part, I mean, it turns out that you can't choose to be gay. Well, I told your friend this and well, he didn't really appreciate me saying that, so now he cracks jokes like that whenever I'm around, because he knows I would ruin him if he ever came out and talked about the relationship we sort of had.' I look at him and I notice that his cheeks have now only reduced to a slight hue of red.

'That's obviously a sensitive topic for you, you're still blushing.' Man, picking on him is fun.

'Shut up, I have a bit of a fever, that's all.'

'What happened to PSI being able to cure any diseases?'

'Well I guess this one is different!' I see him look down in shame. Sure Giegue, sure.

'Well, goodbye. I personally hope we don't see each other again.'

'I'm inclined to agree.' He nods, the blush on his face is starting to disappear. 'I think you'll get your wish. I have some time traveling to do.'

'A lead?'

'I don't know, I don't want to make any assumptions yet. Right now, I'm just looking into a hunch.'

'Oh, well, you'll let me know if anything interesting comes up, right?'

'Of course.' and on that note, we finally split up.==============================================================================================================================================================================================

I stretch, it looks like I'm quite fortunate. I haven't seen Giegue for the rest of the day, that left my day rather peaceful, with the exception of Garth getting the absolute crap kicked out of him by Biff and his friends. It seems, that Biff and his friends blacked out from the whole domination thing, so when Biff saw Garth wearing his jacket, he assumed that Garth stole it, which led to Garth getting a broken nose, poor guy.

"Hey Ness!" I hear a familiar voice from behind me. Oh, it's Mike.

"Hey Mike, did you get to pick on Steven again?" I ask him, recalling what happened after first period.

"Who? The new kid in science class? Why would I want pick on him?"

"But, I thought you two were in a relationship at one point..."

"What are you talking about? You may know my secret, but I can assure you that I never had anything with the new kid..." He stares at me with legitimate confusion. Suddenly a voice rings out in my head.

'I just remembered another thing about domination. Not only can you alter people's thoughts, you can erase them too! BITCH!' I look to where I think Giegue is, and sure enough, I see him in the distance, flipping me not one, but two birds. He remained that way until I began to feel him gather bit of PSI power and teleport out of there, probably to go back in time like he said he would.

"Yeah, sorry man, my mistake." I say absentmindedly as I continue to stare at where he was for a while.

"No problem, man. But before I leave, I have to ask you something."

"What?"

"Who's that fat kid with the blond hair who keeps staring at you?" My eyes widen as I turn around. As soon as I turn around, I see him standing by the arcade, smirking at me.

Pokey...

With all of my power I dash toward him as fast as I can. His smile grows even wider as he steps in the arcade. In seconds, I'm already at the door and ready to face him.

"Ness! It's been a while, hasn't it?" He greets me as I enter the arcade. I grit my teeth, saying nothing. "Is that any way to greet your old friend?"

"We're not friends anymore."

"Hmm, that's a real shame. After all, I went through all of this trouble to see you from-" He pauses. "Oh, well I shouldn't spoil that particular secret, so I'll give away some other ones instead."

"-and what are those?" I ask him.

"I don't know where to begin. How about the fact that I'm not even the real Pokey. I'm a robotic duplicate. Or maybe the fact that I have a Gian quality super shield on me right now, so you can't even attack my duplicate" I quirk my eyebrow at that "Or maybe I should tell you how-" I feel a pair of arms wrap around my neck tightly. "This whole thing was a trap. My friend here has a pretty good grip on you. You'll be done in about a minute or two." He smirks. "Well, you probably didn't think that I could pull something like this off, huh?" My vision starts to go blurry. "That's what you get for looking down on me. When I'm done, nobody will look down on me." His voice starts to become distorted. The lack of oxygen is starting to get to me. "One more thing, Ness. This thing isn't just between us. It's far bigger than you could ever imagine. Bigger than what I did in nowhere islands, even bigger than Giygas. Remember that when the world's ending." I'm no longer able to take the lack of oxygen and I finally pass out.


	10. Investigation

Interlude 2: Identity Crisis.

She had no clue as to what was going on. Her life was a complete blur. For one, She had no recolection of anything before a month ago, She woke up from a deep slumber and remembered nothing about her childhood, parents, even her name drew a blank in her mind. As soon as she woke up, someone had told her that her name was Ana and she was in love with a boy named Ninten. That didn't make any sense, she certainly didn't feel like an Ana and she didn't even know who this Ninten was. Another peculiar thing is that she would have these blackouts, the last thing she remembered was she was sitting in her hotel room, waiting for her roommate, then she blinked and she was at the front door to her hotel room, except it was now nighttime and her lip was swollen. She goes inside, and the first thing she sees is the time, 6:00 PM, the last time she looked at the clock it said it was noon. What the hell had she been doing for the past six hours?

"Hey babe, nice to see you." She hears the familiar voice of her roommate.

"Hello Porky, What have you been doing for the past 6 hours?" She asked him, in hopes of figuring something out.

"A little bit of this and a little bit of that, you know." He said as he started to rummage his way through the pantry, probably in hopes of finding some chips. "Oh yeah, I did get to see that fight you had with Teddy, you kicked his ass."

"Is that so? I do not remember..." That wasn't a lie, she didn't even know who this Teddy was.

"Oh, that sucks." He says as he stuffs his face with chips. "More importantly, I also got to hear about your new name, Reagan, huh?" A jolt, suprisingly, she actually remembered that! She was fed up with being called Ana, she thought Reagan was better.

"Yes, I feel Reagan is an apropriate name for me, I do not like the name Ana, I feel it does not suit me."

"Oh, ok then." He shrugged. "Well, with the defeat of Teddy, the seeds of deciept have been planted. Teddy says that you're the one that hospitalises him, Ninten doesn't believe that his girlfriend would ever do such a thing and gets offended, Ninten starts to trust Teddy less, and then they won't be able properly function as a team, and since 'Ana' is on our side, the only person Ninten can work with and trust is Loid, which puts us in a great position. I'll tell you, I've never seen the boss in such a good mood." She perked up at the mention of 'the boss'. Her boss was sort of a father figure to her. When she woke up for the first time, he was there to tell her everything. He was the one who told her that her name was Ana, and that she was instrumental to a new begining. He was also the first one to tell her that she was different.

She was one of the few humans born with a special type of power called PSI. This power allowed her to do things that normal humans couldn't even dream of. Another thing that made her different was that she was strong, much stronger than a girl her age should be, at least that's what she would think, if she actually had any idea how old she was in the first place. She recalled an event where she got really annoyed at yet another one of her blackouts, when she came to, it was nighttime and she was standing beside a car, she punched the door of the car in fury and to her suprise, It bent! It didn't just bend slightly either, it bent in half. She has never seen any other human do that to this day.

The boss told her that Ninten is apearently capable of doing the same thing to trucks, she wasn't suprised. She had to hang around with Ninten for extended periods of time, apparently, she couldn't remember, she would be around Ninten for a while and then she would have another blackout, but from what she had seen, he was very strong, and she didn't know why, but he always felt the need to impress her with his strength, as much as she didn't like it, she had to go along with it, boss's orders. The farce in general was annoying. To be around Ninten, she had to change herself completely, she had to wear a pink dress, had to put in these things called contact lenses because her eyes were green, she also had to wear her hair at the sides, in something called 'pigtails'. The whole process was nausiating to her. She prefered her normal attire very much, a black leather jacket with a black shirt and jeans, with her hair tied up into something called a 'low ponytail.' Did humans always have such stupid names for things? Why is it called a ponytail? Why is it low? She was certainly not a pony.

She moved her way over to the window, watching the cars pass by her hotel room. She didn't get to enjoy the view for very long, because she felt a pair of arms come from behind and wrap around her. "What are you doing?" She asked the only other person in the room.

"I'm showing my affection." He answers as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"I am confused, why do you suddenly feel the need to do such a thing?"

"Because, I like you." She couldn't help but raise her eyebrow.

"I do not understand the notion."

"It means I want to be involved with you, romantically."

"I see. If that is the case, then I do not feel the same way about you. The idea of romance does not appeal to me, and neither do you."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Your touch makes me want to vomit, you also smell of food and sweat. You are also very unattractive when compared to Ninten, you do not appeal to me physically, neither of you do for that matter. I am not intrested in the idea of romance in general, be it with you or Ninten." He didn't move.

"Cmon, don't be like that, I always get what I want for a reason." He cooed in her ear. She couldn't help but shudder.

"You are quite persistent. You do not accept no for an answer, do you?"

"Nope."

"Very well, I have other ways of saying no." She quickly spun around and picked him up by the throat, holding him against a wall. "Do not do this again. I will break your neck if you choose to persist. I assume you have better things to do than to have such meaningless conversations with me." She let him down. With a grunt, Porky left the room. Was he testing her? Why did he want to be romantically involved with her? She was positive that there were better looking suitors for him if he were to start looking.

Really, this whole ordeal has left her so confused.

INTERLUDE END

* * *

I let out a sigh as I arrive to my destination Ellay, year 1985. It should be approximately two weeks after Ninten and the others came back from the Nowhere islands, now then, let's see if I did it right.

"You?" I hear a familiar voice ring out. "What the hell are you doing here? When I said never to see me again, I meant NEVER, not two weeks later!" Ah. Thank you for confirming that for me, Ninten.

"Hey there, buddy." I turn to see Ninten standing there with Loid. "How are you doing? I hope you kids have been behaving." I grin at him. I swear, pissing off Ninten is FUN!

"Why are you here, Steven?" Loid asks me.

"Don't call him that, it's an insult to Steven, that's Giegue."

"Insult to Steven? Please, you didn't even like Steven." Ninten grunts. "and it's not like Steven went anywhere, we merged, he's a part of me, just like Giegue is." I explain to them.

"Very well then, that just leaves one question. Who are you?" Who am I? That's a question that stumps me everytime it's asked, am I Giegue? Am I Steven? Am I Human, or Gian? Would I be considered a hybrid? Goddamnit! There's a reason I try to avoid this question.

"That's not important right now." I end that conversation as soon as I can. "Next question."

"Why are you here?" Ninten calls out to me angrily.

"Simple, I'm here for Ana. You know, just in case she wants to be with a real man instead of a clown like you. Does she still wear that cherry flavored lip balm I like so much?" He grunts louder. "Actually, nevermind, It's not like you've ever gotten to kiss her before." Oh man! I think I see smoke coming out of his ears! "Get out of my way, hulkie, I'm here to go to the hospital."

"Why?" He growled.

"None of your damn business. Maybe I want to see a friend of mine in there?" I sigh. "Is there a particular reason I can't go in?" He shakes his head.

"No, I suppose not. But don't you dare try going back to your old lair." He walks up to me, stopping until we're nose to nose. "If you go back to your lair, I'll-"

"You'll what? Kill me? Don't make me laugh, even if you did muster up the courage to kill me, what's to stop me from coming back?"

"You of all people should know that I don't need to kill you, we all know your weakness." I scorn.

"My weakness? I really hope you're not talking about Maria's lullaby. If you sing even one verse of that, I'll claw your fucking throat out with my bare hands." I feel him gather up a bit of PSI. A red aura starts to surround me as I stare him down. "That's a bad idea, Ninten. The last time we fought, I used up quite a bit of power, just keeping Steven under control. I was only at a about 20% of my power back then, I'm at full power now baby. So, go ahead. I DARE you to fight me."

"Ninten." Loid puts his hand on his shoulder. "Come on, lets go, he's not even worth it." Ninten grunts as he starts to walk away.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." I grunt as I make my way to the hospital. "Oh yeah! One more thing." I say as I turn around, he does the same. "You're a smart guy, Ninten. It's a good thing you didn't try to attack me."

"-and why is that?" He spat.

"Because you would've been hit by quite a bit of PSI." He grunts. "That much PSI, to be exact." He raises an eyebrow. "Look up." They listen to me and both look up. I hear Loid's breath catch in his throat, he has a good reason to. Floating above them, a deep crimson cloud of pure PSI power about the size of Ellay sat there, menacingly. We all stare at it for a few moments before I quickly dispel it. "Just something for you two to think about the next time you want to fight me. Have a nice day." I wave goodbye to them as I enter the hospital. I smile to myself as I see the lack of a lineup, I grin as I walk towards the receptionist.

"Hi, how may I help you?" She asks me, I quickly let my eyes wander along her body. She's pretty good looking, that outfit of hers hugged her curves quite nicely. Too bad I have to look into things. I'll remember her the next time I'm in town though.

"Hey beautiful." Fuck it, I need to forget Claudia the elevator girl, go hormones go! She blushes slightly at my comment. "I'm looking for my friend, Teddy. I heard he was injured and brought here. Can you bring me to him?"

"Of course." She motions me to follow her down a narrow hallway.

"Wow, who would've thought I'd see such pretty girls such as yourself just walking around. I'm shocked that you're even working at a simple place. You give off the vibe of a celebrity trophy wife, or something." She giggles.

"Thank you, that's very kind of you." She smiles and turns to me. "I don't have a boyfriend, though... I just got out of a relationship, actually." YES! I just met her and I'm already getting her to spill the details.

"Really? Wow, I guess pretty girls can be single. I personally didn't think it was possible." She blushes a bit.

"Here's your friend's room." She motions towards the door on her right.

"Great, although, I kind of wish it was farther." I give her a smile, She giggles again.

"Yeah... Me too." She waves at me. "Have a nice day."

"I already am." I give her one last smile as open the door to Teddy's room. Well then, as I walk in the room, I see Teddy lying in a hospital bed, that officially confirms it, that dream was real. There's two other people dressed in blue, they both give me a menacing glare as they begin to approach me.

"Hey." He calls out as he adjusts himself on the bed. "Don't attack him, he's cool." They let up. "Even if you did, I doubt you would stop him. Why are you here?" He looks at me.

"Simple, I'm checking up on you. I heard you were beat up real bad."

"How the hell is that even possible? You're from, like what? 10 years in the future?"

"About that much, yeah." He glares at me. "So, who are these fine gentlemen?" I motion to the two guys standing by him.

"Friends of mine." He says abruptly.

"Funny, they look like gangsters."

"Of course, because they're friends of mine that look like gangsters."

"Are they your guys?"

"Guys? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play stupid with me, Teddy. I can read minds, you know." He tries to laugh but winces in pain.

"Yeah, they're my guys." He nods while grinning.

"Wow, so you're back in the gang life, huh?" He keeps grinning, remaining silent. "You lying bastard!" I yell out in realization. "You never left?!" He nods. "Wow, no wonder Ninten was so pissed when I ran into him. You've been playing him for years!"

"It's not that simple." He explains.

"It doesn't have to be. The truth remains the same." He shrugs, or attempts to anyway. "Whatever, that's not why I'm here." He raises an eyebrow. "I'm here because I need to know exactly what happened you at that warehouse. But before we start..." I say as I reach into my pocket, pulling out the pack of cigarettes that the bullies got for me. "I bet you're killing for one of these."

"Oh god! You have no idea!" I grin as I walk over to him. He takes a cigarette and pops it into his mouth. He motions toward's one of his goons, he obviously knew what to do because he quickly pulled out a lighter and lit Teddy's smoke for him. "These damn doctors are driving me crazy! They even got rid of my friends smokes!" He takes a deep breath, before quickly wincing in pain. "Damn it! I can't do shit with broken ribs!" He rubs his chest for a moment. "Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I thought you said that you saw the whole incedent in a dream or something?"

"I didn't get to see much of it." I explain. "I only got to see bits and pieces of it."

"Oh, so you didn't get to see the beat down?" He asks hopefully.

"Oh no. That's what I saw the most."

"Damn, and here I was, hoping that you didn't see me get beat by a girl." He smiles. "Anyway. What part do you want to hear?"

"Just run the whole thing by me."

"Alright, then. It all started when I was relaxing by myself until I got a phone call from one of my guys. He told me that this girl was hunting my guys down. By the time I got the call, she had already hospitalized 10 of us in little under an hour." Shit. This chick is effective at what she does. "So, I went to go talk to the guys that got jumped, and they all told me the same thing. They all got jumped by this average sized girl with abnormal strength."

"Abnormal? How so?"

"Well, I spoke to this one guy that said she ripped a car door off of it's hinges and threw it at him. Another guy said that she punched a crater in a wall by the police station not too far from here. I checked, it's there!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah! 'Fucking big one, too! But no, stupid me. I thought that it had to be something else, it couldn't be the girl they described, but I was proven wrong, really quickly."

"What happened?"

"I confronted her. You know the rest."

"Yeah, well, most of it. Did you see who it was?"

"I did, but it was weird..."

"Was she someone you knew?"

"Was she ever..." He takes a drag from his cigarette. "It was Ana."

"What?" I ask in shock.

"You heard me, man. It was Ana. Except she was weird. She was dressed differently like really differently. Like a biker would. She also said that she would rather be called Reagan instead of Ana." He shakes his head. "Well, she attacked me, we fought, and the rest you know." He sighs. "Some gang leader I am, I can't even stand up to the most gentle girl I know."

"Don't worry about it man." I reassure him. "Actually, I think you're lucky you weren't completely fucking killed. Humans aren't supposed to fight things that can throw cars like that." I begin to frown. "Well, this is great. I came here to get some questions answered, it seems that I'm left with more questions then before."

"What kind of questions?"

"Well, there's the biggest one being 'What the hell is going on?' That's pretty major. Now I have to figure out what happened to Ana, I have to find Pokey, and I need to stop Ana and Pokey before they get what they want. Oh yeah! That's another thing, what the fuck do they want?"

"Why don't you let Ninten and Loid take care of everything over here?" He asks me.

"Nope, they'll mess it up. I'm sure of it." I say to him as I turn to the exit. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot." I turn back to him and extend my hand. My fingertips start to glow red as a similar red glow starts to envelop Teddy. After a few seconds, a few snapping sounds were heard from Teddy's torso, as well as some grunting from Teddy. Once I feel it's enough, I lower my hand.

"Ah." He takes a deep breath. "Oh wow, thanks for fixing my ribs." He grins. "I was getting pretty pissed, since the main healer of our little group was the one who did this to me, and Ninten forgot. No one remembers little old Teddy." He snaps his fingers towards one of his gang members. "You there! Get my clothes, these hospital gowns suck!" He quickly does what he's told. "Thanks... Steven? Or do you go by Giegue now? Or was it Giygas?"

"Call me whatever you want. I'm not too sure what to go by myself. Bye." I wave goodbye as I leave the room head back over to the counter.

"Hey." The cute receptionist calls out to me.

"Hey you." I casually saunter over to her. "You know, I've been meaning to ask you. You want to meet up sometime?"

"Yeah, that would be great, but." She stares at me intently. "I don't date kids." What?

"Kid? Who says I'm a kid?"

"Your friend in the striped shirt over there." She points behind me. I turn to see Ninten, laughing at me. "He told me everything about you."

"Oh, is that right?" I growl as I put a cigarette in my mouth and light it up.

"You can't smoke in here."

"Oh, I know. I'm moving outside." I inhale and take the longest drag I can before walking outside and throwing the cigarette away. I stride over to Ninten until I get right in front of him.

"Is there a problem?" He's desperately trying to hold back his laughter. I scorn as I blow all the smoke in his face. "Hey you! *Wheeze* You. *Cough*" Whatever he was trying to tell me couldn't be heard, thanks to the asthma attack I just gave him.

"How's that for a problem, dickhead?"

"Loid!" He whispers. "My *wheeze* inhaler!"

"Wow." Loid says as he runs over with Ninten's inhaler. "Disproportionate retribution much? All he did was tell that girl you're only a kid! That's certainly doesn't warrant an asthma attack!"

"What can I say? Revenge is a dish best served with an extra helping. That and It probably doesn't help that I'm not on the best terms with Ninten to begin with." I grin. "You kids behave, now! Bye!" I wave to them as I teleport away. The scenery quickly changes from Ellay to Onett. I should tell Ness about what I found. As soon as I end up in Onett, I begin to look around for Ness. Clucking my tongue, I use PSI to locate him. He's... Not here. He's not in Twoson either, or Threed, or Fourside, he's not in Winters or Summers either. Where the hell is Ness?

"Steven!" I hear a female voice call out to me. I turn around and see Mona running towards me. Surprisingly, Jack is with her. "We saw Ness get jumped by some fat kid with blonde hair." Pokey.

"What!? When?"

"About 30 minutes ago. Jack and I were in town, and we both saw your friend get captured.

"Interesting. But, you live in Summers, Mona, and you live in Cinqtopolis, Jack. How did you two get here?"

"Is that really important right now? Your friend looked like he was in pretty bad shape!" Mona looks at me seriously.

"I see, well then. How would you two like to go on a little adventure?" I can't help but chuckle at this situation. Who would think that Giegue would ever have to save Ness? It's ridiculous.

Looks like this just got interesting.


	11. The Hard Knock Life

"So, run this by me again. Where is Ness?" I furrow my brow waiting for her response.

"I don't know, I just saw some fat kid with blonde hair lead him into the arcade. When he stepped back out, he was carrying your friend over his shoulder." I put my hand on my chin, deep in thought. Well, the description fits Pokey like a glove, but I don't think he's strong enough to even fight Ness, let alone carry him all the way to god knows where. That must mean that Pokey had some help, that seems likely.

"OK then, did you see if he had anyone with him?" She bites her lip. "I'll take that as a no, did you see where he went at least?"

"No. I didn't." She looks down, ashamed.

"Well, fuck!" I raise my arms in exasperation. "This is just perfect! The fatass shows his face, takes my incompetent partner and goes back to his fucking hiding spot!" I slam my fist into my palm with a grunt. "What about you? Hulkamania?" Jack turns to look at me with a grunt.

"Don't look at me. I didn't see anything." He shrugs. "Instead of wasting your time pretending to be someone on Law and Order, maybe you should try and look for your friend."

"No, 'cause that totally wasn't what I just doing." I snap at him, sarcasm and contempt dripping from my every word. "Fucking Jackass." I add for a little emphasis.

"What did you just call me?" He walks closer to me, putting on his best tough guy look. I place my hand on my forehead and sigh.

"Look, I'm really not in the mood to play this game with you right now. I'm having a bad day. I'm warning you, don't get on my bad side."

"Or what?" He cracks his knuckles.

"Or I'll teleport you." He scoffs. "I wouldn't laugh. It doesn't sound like much, but I can teleport you anywhere I want, such as between the road and, let's see... Oh I know! The wheel of a moving bus!"

"Easy, you two." Mona pushes between us. "Take your testosterone-fueled bullshit somewhere else. I don't want to be around it. Steven, if you want help with finding your friend, I'll help you." She puts her hand on my shoulder.

"Come on, Mona! Just leave him! He'll probably turn up by tommorow."

"Shut up, Jack." He grunts and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Fine." He grunts. "If Mona's in, then I have no choice but to help out, too."

"I'm sorry, am I missing something?"

"Yes." Mona smiles. "As a matter of fact, you are. Jack and I have started to date." I nod.

"You don't say. That's cute." I pause. "But here's a question, how? Mona, you live in Summers. Jack, you live in Cinqtopolis. How is this even supposed to work?"

"Well, first of all." Jack spoke up. "The bus routes are back up and running in Cinqtopolis." He rolled his eyes. "No thanks to you." I feel my eye twitch. No thanks to me? Who was the one that payed off most of Cinqtopolis' debt three years ago?

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I remember who you are. You're just like everyone else from Cinqtopolis. You complain about how bad it is, but you never do anything about it. You just leave the first chance you get. Like every other rat from that place." I feel my face burning.

"Enough is enough. Mona, get your man on a leash, before I fucking kill him." He scoffs. "I'm not going to stand here and get told off by some scumbag gang leader. Tell me then, what have you done to better the place? Hmm? Keeping the dealers employed, I hope."

"We don't deal."

"Oh really? That may be true, but it doesn't stop trash like you from doing something. It's always something with you guys. Be it robbing liquor stores or jumping people for their money." I can't stop myself, the words are just pouring out at this point. This guy really struck a nerve. "I swear, instead of wasting my time kicking your ass, I should just get you busted. You'd get murdered in prison that way."

"Don't get all rightous with me. Your uncle is a bad man, isn't he? Kills three guys, hijacks the dope game and skips town." I can't help but raise my eyebrow at that, how the hell did he know that? I had made sure to destroy any evidence of my relation to him... Anyway, It takes all the will power I have to resist screaming at him. "The best part about the underground? You know everything. I wonder how the nice people of Summers will be when they find out your not only related to, but also an accomplice to one of the worst crime bosses in history. If I go to prison, I'm taking you with me." After a long pause. I reply.

"That's your trump card? Some spotty info at best? I don't know who the fuck strapped the balls on you, to think it was a good idea to antagonize me this much, and really? 'One of the worst crime bosses in history'? Don't you think that's taking things out of context? I'm sure there's worse. But you're not the only one with information." I calm down, the slight frown on my face turning into a confident stare. "Information is good, don't you think? It's better to be dead than dumb, right? Just ask Clare." His eyes widen. "Then again, I guess it's pretty hard to talk when you're a corpse, huh?" I grin. I would know.

"You son of bitch! You don't even have the right to talk about her!"

"Both of you ENOUGH." Mona shouts as she jumps between us for the second time. "Steven, If you want Jack and I to help you, you have to promise to leave Jack alone!" Jack let out a grin as Mona scolded me. "And YOU!" She quickly pointed to him. "Stop antagonizing him! I'm sure you two are mature enough to avoid each other. If you think talking to each other is going to cause problems, then don't! It's not that hard!"

"Fine." Jack grunted.

"Fair enough."

"Good, now hug." We both pause for a moment. "Well?"

"Um, yeah. I like you and all, and as much as I want to make you happy, no." Jack shook his head.

"Nope." I do the same.

"Well, you're agreeing on something." Mona sighed.

"Right." I shake my head again. "This sucks!" I throw my hands up in exasperation. "Where the fuck is Ness? I've tried using PSI to search everywhere, I've even tried the Tenda villiage." I vent as we start walking nowhere in particular. Mona quickly puts her hand on my shoulder.

"Did you try Cinqtopolis?" My eyes widen.

"No... I didn't..." I focus on Cinqtopolis as hard as I can, searching for any sign of Ness.

"Did you find anything?"

"No, I didn't." Mona looked down, eyes downcast. I don't pay her any attention. "But, that doesn't make any sense." I continue. "I can't even find it. That's ridiculous, how come I can't use my PSI to detect it. It's like it doesn't exsist..."

"Well, that's not the case. I just came from Cinqtopolis a few hours ago, It was there, in all its corrupt glory." Jack states with a grunt. "You sure your PS-whatever it's called isn't just messing up, or something? "

"No, that's not right, that can't be right." I frown, deep in thought. My ability to track people with PSI is honed from years of training with the high council when I was younger. What the hell happened? I was reading Ness' mind from across Eagleland before, now I can't find a damn city? No, no, this isn't on me. Can't be, I was tracking fine. I found Winters, Summers, all the places Ness was known to be, I located and searched them without a hitch. So why can't I even find Cinqtopolis? Wait! It could be a PSI Killer! Yeah! That explains why I can't find it, but wait. That doesn't make any sense. How could Pokey get his hands on a PSI Killer like that? Sure, I had a few from my... Darker years, but they didn't come with an instruction manual, and none of them were strong enough to blank out an entire city. I strongly doubt that Pokey just figured out how to make a PSI Killer, but how did he get something that strong?

"Um, Steven?" A PSI Killer can completely nullify the use of PSI in an area, usually, they are only limited to stuff like stopping mass telepathy or making sure no one teleports to a certain area. You can't really do too much with it, since it doesn't tell apart friend or foe. But, they're usually for small areas, like a specific cave, or a temporary hotspot. Like I said before, I don't recall having any PSI killer strong enough for a city, but if he didn't get from me, and he didn't make it himself, then he had to get it from someone. "Steven?" But, that doesn't make any sense, either. PSI Killers are strictly Gian tech. Gians don't throw their tech around like it's nothing. So It had to be an alliance. But, that creates even more questions! First and foremost, This place is basically nonexsistent on the High Council's radar. This planet doesn't have much resources compared to many other mining planets that are already under High Council rule, and on top of that, the enviroment is going to shit. There's no reason for the High Council to want this place. But wait, the High Council aren't the only Gians in the universe. It could have been Dark Gians, but wait. Their very exsistence is spotty at best, and I seriously doubt they have a reason to show themselves for the first time, just so they could come here, of all places. Hmm, there was a rumour about Starmen being mechanized Gians flying around back when I was in the militia, true or false, that would explain the tech, Starmen have worked with the High Council as business partners for quite a while. and as for the motive... The Original... He was disgusted with my actions when I was under control of his men. Perhaps he saw a chance to get revenge on me in Pokey. That's a motive. So, does this mean that Pokey is working with the Starmen? If so then-

"STEVEN!" Mona screams as she shakes me violently. "I'm sorry, but we were trying to get your attention for a while." Mona sighed. "You just looked down like you were contimplating something. Any ideas?"

"Yeah, we need to go to Cinqtopolis, but I can't teleport there. So, we'll go to Summers and catch a plane to Cinqtopolis, and..." I exhale, if this is as big as I think it is, I'm gonna need help. "I need you guys to come with me, even you, Jack."

"Um, what? You do realise the busses are up and running, right?"

"Tell me, Jack. When did you get here?"

"A few hours ago."

"The busses probably closed down again." Jack looked at me like I was retarded. "Oh really?" I motion a bus driver who was conveniently eating a donut near us.

"What do you want?" He asks with a mouth full of donut.

"Are you driving to Cinqtopolis?"

"*PFFFT!*" He replies, spraying donut crumbs all over the three of us. Good thing I'm not in my suit, otherwise, I think I'd be feeding this man his teeth. "Are you kidding me? The bus route to Cinqtopolis closed down."

"Bingo." I say triumphantly, wiping off the donut crumbs of my shirt. "That's what I thought." I turn to Jack.

"Bu-But... They were just open! What the fu-"

"Wow, you obviously don't know how things work, huh?" I grin, interupting him. "What? Don't tell me you're new to the Sink." I let out a chuckle. "Public transit routes are never open for more than a few hours at a time. Gangs run the toll booths, man! Where the fuck have you been?"

"But, I thought I took care of them!"

"Are you serious? You can't just take care of something in there. Everyone's got a boss, you want to take of something, you gotta work your way down the food chain. All the way up to the mayor."

"I know the mayor is fucked up, but really? It's that bad?"

"Yes, it really is that bad. Trust me, I've spent far too many years of my life trying to fix that place. If it was easy, I would have done it ages ago."

"You really tried to fix that place, huh?" Mona asks in wonder.

"Yeah, tried."

"How come no one helped you?"

"Because no one cares enough to do it." I deadpan. "You think I was the only one? There have been others, people who have tried to save that city from its corruption. They dissapear quickly, then they're either bought over and become corrupt, or end up dead in a cement ditch." Mona look at me with concerned eyes, she open her mouth as if she wanted to say something. I quickly bring up my hand to stop her. "No, we have to focus on the task at hand. Let's go." I rotate my shoulders as I teleport the three of us to my house in Summers.

* * *

I stretch, it was a long day. I had to arrange plane tickets for Mona and Jack, It was pretty simple, I even managed to catch a plane to Cinqtopolis that was departing tommorow morning. Lucky me. The only problem that appeared after was the fact that Jack has nowhere to sleep. I instantly said that he should stay the night with Mona, but she said no, she said that her dad was crazy overprotective and he would never allow some goon from Cinqtopolis to sleep under the same roof as her daughter. Shit, Mona's dad sounds like he would be good friends with Paula's dad. Anyway, Mona instantly apologized and pushed Jack on me, like he was some dog, or something. So now, I'm living under the same roof with some sleazebag gangster from back home, or Steven's home anyway.

I let out a yawn as I slowly walk over to my Study. My study isn't really a study, to be honest, it's more like an empty room with a balcony. Either way, it's where I do my best thinking. I go to the balcony and lean on the railing, focusing on nothing but the full moon and the brisk Summers air. After what felt like a few minutes, I hear footsteps behind me. "What do you want, Jack?" I ask in a tired voice.

"Can't sleep with the draft." He replies, also in a tired voice.

"Strange, last time I checked, it was pretty cold back home."

"It still is, I'm just always in the heat, I hate the cold."

"I see." I pull out a cigarrette and pop it in my mouth.

"Mind giving me one?"

"Mind getting your own?" I snap at him as I light my smoke. "I would've thought that a Cinqtopolis kid would have his own smokes."

"Forgot them in my other pants." I hear him grunt in annoyance.

"Why are you here, Jack? Don't tell me that you're cold, I know you want to talk to me about something."

"Fine." He sighs. "It's about Mona."

"I don't care if you're dating her. I'm a lot more interested in how you two started dating, considering that you two just met, but whatever the case may be, I didn't want her that way, I still don't. Don't tell me anything cliche like to 'stay away from her' or something. Just because you're her boyfriend doesn't mean that I'm going to change how I feel or act around her." I wanted to add 'just ask Ninten' to that sentence so badly. "That's not the only thing that you wanted to talk to me about, is it?" He clears his throat.

"No." He replies after a long pause. "There's something else."

"Go on." A sigh.

"How do you know Clare?" Hmm, so he asks about his little sister? That's almost cute.

"I don't know her, only know about her." I correct him. "As for how, I read your mind at the last second. PSI lets me do that, in case you didn't know." I turn back to him. "Now then, how the hell do you know about my uncle? Don't tell me you have PSI."

"No, just a reliable souce of information." I silently urge him to continue. "Well, if you have to know, there's a guy in my neighbourhood. He's name's Don."

"Rat?"

"No, not that simple." I turn around to stare at him for a moment. "He was a cleaner for the two Kings guys that whacked your parents." A cleaner, that's street talk for the guy that takes care of the legal crap after a contract killing. His job is to make sure the cops look the other way, no matter what he has to do.

"Hmm, is that right?"

"I would've thought that mentioning the death of your parents would cause more of a reaction."

"I was ten when my parents were killed. A lot has happened to me in six years. To be honest, I don't care anymore, in fact. I think I've been better off without them so far, aside from the initial inheritence money, I've lived my life by myself."

"But still, family is family. Don't you think It's a little fucked up that both your parents are dead and you can't even be bothered to give a shit?"

"No, I don't." He stares at me, mouth open in disbelief. "Don't give me that look, You have to be tough to survive the streets of Cinqtopolis. You off all people should know that." I turn my back to him and continue to stare at the night sky.

"What were they like?"

"Why the fuck should I tell you?" I snap at him. "They're dead now, remembering them is pointless." I grunt. "Anyway, tell this 'Don', person that if he tells anyone else about my uncle, I'll kill him myself."

"Hmph. You're heartless, man." he replies calmly, obviously thinking that I'm bluffing. "Whatever, I'm going to sleep." I say nothing as he quietly walks out of the room.

* * *

**So there you go, a little glimpse into the combined mindset of the new Giegue/Steven, as well as a glimpse into how things are in Cinqtopolis. Now, I know I don't type these often, but I have a question, I'm thinking of changing the fanfic rating to M, because well, it'll allow me to take more liberties in terms of violence and all the other family friendly stuff Giegue/Steven is known for, for one, and two, I feel that I'm taking a lot of liberties as it is. Let me know how you feel in a review, you know, if you feel like reviewing...**

**(Do it man. You know you want to.)**


	12. Loyalty

I'm seeing a familiar dream. My house was just blown up, courtesy of Pokey. I'm currently holding my mom tightly. "Oh no..." I hear my mom whisper.

"Guys, It's alright, I don't care about the house, you guys are alright, that's all that's important to me." I try and reassure my family.

"...Daddy?" I hear Tracy say quietly.

"Guys?" I pull away, my voice hinting at my concern. "Guys? Talk to me, what's wrong?"

"Ness, It's your father, he-

I wake up in a dimly lit room, It looks like I've been on the ground for a while. It seems I'm in a basement or something. "Pokey!" I call out, no answer.

"If you are searching for the other human, he's not here." A voice calls out to me , it was deep, kind of regal in a way. It sounds like it belongs to a guy in late 30's, maybe older."He left, but I don't know how long ago. You see, time passes slowly here. It's dreadful." I quickly get up and look around the room until I see a shadow in front of me, sitting on the floor.

"Don't worry, I don't want to hurt you. I want to do the opposite, actually. I want to help you, if you didn't already figure that out. Do you see that curtain across from me?" I turn around, sure enough, the curtain is there.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I lied to the man that imprisoned me here, when I first came here, I told him that was a cerimonial curtain for my people, the egotiscial fool, I've been digging a hole behind that curtain, I've dug quite far now, there is only a small layer of wall left needed to be broken, If you succeed in breaking that, you will be free."

"If it's that simple, why haven't you excaped yet?"

"I'm afraid I can't, I would be spotted easily among the humans, not only that, but I know that the fat human didn't tell Mjollek about this place, he will search for me if I leave, he knows I'm here, as for you, he doesn't. That will give you ample time to escape."

"Ok, thanks for the info." I thank him, ignoring the strange name he said.

"Good, you understand, before you leave, I have to tell you one more thing. Share this information with your allies, if you can. The Gians are involved in this planet themselves, tell your allies that Mjollek is here with members of the high council, two generals, I believe. Remember the name, Mjollek, that's pronounced MEE-OLL-ECK. If his reports are true, and you're working with a rogue gian, the gian will recognize the name immediately. Mjollek also has a small network of spies working for him. At any cost, avoid a human by the name of Clyde, he is pretending to be a leader of one of the gangs here, he is lying, he's a gian spy. Don't forget what I have told you! Now leave, quickly. Before he comes back."

"Wait, who are you?"

"Someone who has been captive for far too long, and would hate to see another one share my fate. Now go!" That's enough motivation for me, I quickly lift the curtain out of the way and sure enough, there is a hole about my size.

"Wow, how did you manage to dig a hole this big exactly?"

"My people are quite strong."

"Your people?" I can't help but raise an eyebrow, not like he could see it in the dark.

"Now is not the time for that, human!" He begins to shout at me, clearly getting annoyed, right. I don't need to stay here any longer than I have to. I gather all the strength I have and run through the hole as fast as I can, I can't see where the tunnel ends so I put my shoulder forward and I pick up speed. I evantually tackle my way through the wall, revealing the clear night sky outside.

"What the fuck?"

"Holy hell!" I raise my head to reveal a few Stripe Shirts staring at me.

"Suprise suckers!" It must be the adrenaline, because I can't help but think about how badass I look right now. With a very Giegue-like grin, I raise my hand. "PK FLASH." I concentrate all of my PSI power and a few green sparks fizzle out of my hand.

"What the hell was that?"

"What a joke!"

"Seriously?"

"Fuck me!" I yell out. A fist crashes against my cheek, another guy kicks in my leg. This is not my day. Well, they continued jumping me from there. They must've spent the next five minutes kicking me. Well, evantually, they stop.

"Check his pockets, I need money for cigs." I hear one call out. I blink a few times, just to make sure everything is good. OK, you're all good, Ness, can't use PSI though... One of the stripe shirts goes over to check my pockets, as soon as he reaches for my pocket, I grab and twist his wrist with a crack.

"Check my pockets? Like hell you will!" PSI or not, I'm not about to get mugged by the stupidest gang in Eagleland. I pull his hand and I give him the hardest headbutt I can muster.

"What the fuck?" I hear a stripe shirt say. I quickly give him a quick kick to the side of the head to shut him up. Now I'm left with only one Stripe Shirt left, he was quick to run, I guess he wasn't so tough without his friends around, huh?

I take a look around, judging from the Stripe Shirts I just fought, I think it's safe to say that I'm in Cinqtopolis. Ugh, I need something to drink. With a grunt, I run inside nearest convience store. It was a crappy looking place, lots of cracks in the walls. I suppose I should expect this from Eagleland's collective trashcan. Taking a minute a get my bearings, I walk over to the refrigerator and grab a pop. "So, nice place you got here..." I say as I put my pop and my money on the counter. The store clerk was a short girl with a scowl on her face, she was skimming over a magazine.

"Well, it won't be open for very long, I'm going to Fourside in a week. I'm tired of the shithole of a city. Steven at least TRIED to fix this place." She put her magazine down and glared at me. "I swear Clyde is way worse than Jonathan ever was. I'd say that the gang war is messing the whole city up, but it's been like this for years. The only thing that changed was who was fighting who, first it was the Kings versus the Cortez family, then it was the Stripe Shirts versus the vigilante son of the Cortez family. Now it's gang versus gang, and a lot of people are being caught in the crossfire." She sighs. "I'm really sorry about that, I really just needed to share that with someone."

"It's fine. I know someone who feels the same way."

"I see, well, is this everything?" I nod, she quickly opens the register and hands me my change. I nod to her as I leave the store. The sound a car door slamming fills my ears.

"OPEN THE REGISTER YOU BITCH!" Wow, I didn't even cross the street. Whatever, the last thing I want to do is cause a scene. She's used to being mugged anyway. No need to me to step in, right?

"I can't just leave her, can I?" I ask no one in particular. With a sigh, I turn around and drag my feet back to the convience store. As soon as I enter the store, I find myself looking down the barrel of a gun. "You wouldn't shoot an innocent kid, would you?" I deadpan

"I would."

"Oh, well that-" I stop, a suprised expression on my face. "OH MY GOD! IS THAT STEVEN?" I point behind him. He quickly turns around.

"What the fu-" He stops talking because it looks like he came down with a really bad case of broken jaw.

"Idiot." I put my hands in my pockets as I turn back to the clerk. "Well, he's out cold. You should call the cops, I think. Maybe not, or should you? I don't know!"

"It's a gamble. To be honest, I didn't think anyone would try to save me." She grabs the guy's arm. "I'm gonna drag this guy far and away from my store. Thank you." She nods as she starts dragging the guy out. Well then, now that that's over. I need to know figure out why I can't use PSI. I don't get it, I used PSI exactly as I should've, why didn't I get Flash working? All I know is that something is definetely wrong here. My train of thought is cut short, thanks to a numbing pain in my leg, I quickly fall down on one knee.

"Heh! This is a nice bat you got here, you know? I heard the story about some kid who tried to fire off a PSI Flash. I suppose that was you, huh? To bad the PSI killer was up." PSI Killer? Giegue told me about that! Nobody else should be able to use PSI either. Trying my hardest to supress a grin, I turn my head to the voice, it was none other than Clyde. "Now then, I wonder how you escaped? Well, I guess Dominus must've had a plan to escape. Still, nice of him to share his escape plan with you, whatever it was."

"Who are you? Really?"

"Well, not some dumb gangster. That's for sure. I'm sure Dominus told you who I am, and who I'm working for. Didn't he?"

"Yeah, some guy named Mjollek, right?"

"Some guy? The Grand Master of the High Council isn't just 'some guy.'" He corrects me. I ignore it and stare at his arm that's holding my Gutsy bat. "Anyway, my name is Kikus, I'm a member of the High Council, a spy, to be exact. I specialize in assuming different identities."

"The High Council?" I ask in genuine confusion, the guy in the cell didn't explain this to me.

"Seriously? How the hell haven't you heard of the high council? I thought you were on speaking terms with Giegue?" My eyes widen.

"How did you know?" He lets out a chuckle.

"Really? How dumb do you think I am? No human has that kind of PSI."

"Not what I was talking about." He raises an eyebrow.

"Really? What were you talking about then?"

"Giegue is dead."

"HA!" He slaps his knee. "You actually think I'm going to believe that bullshit? I'm with the god damn council! Do you seriously think that you're going to fool me with that garbage?" He chuckles. "We've known almost everything about him since his first death. We know about the Giygas incedent. It's funny though, he's on the brink on insanity, and he chooses the nickname we gave someone back in the Kl'rt Annexation, he was terrified of him. I mean, I know he was a part of that but, still. Giygas Is fitting, I suppose. He did kill with an insane fervor." He grins. "Do you know what it means?"

"No."

"Giygas roughly translates to 'The Mad Butcher.' It's fitting, the original Giygas must've killed at least a thousand of us with that damn rocksword of his." To be honest, I'm kinda interested in this, but I'm keeping an eye on his hand on my bat, waiting for it to loosen even slightly. "From what I hear, Giegue wasn't much different. What was his body count?"

"Few hundred, at the very least."

"A few hundred? Wow, he should've aimed a bit higher. Not really living up to the name, if you ask me. Still, I guess I have to give him credit. He has a really big body count for someone who isn't even 100. Between that little Giygas stunt and what he did in the Kl'rt annexation, he has at least a few hundred kills under his belt. ." He frowns. "He didn't tell you any of this?"

"We don't talk much."

"Evidently. You're learning more about him from me then from him. You have some questions to ask him, huh? Not that you're getting out of this."

"How are you so sure of that?"

"I can read your mind, man." I try my hardest to supress a smile. PSI Killer is down. I think I can use PSI now. I gotta keep that thought locked up, gotta make sure he doesn't hear it. I glance back to his hand holding the bat, The arm holding my bat starts to relax. I use that as my chance. He lets out a small gasp of suprise as I lunge to him as fast as I can. Not fast enough, it seems. as he moves to the side and trips me. I try to use my other leg for balance, but It quickly gives out. "Nice try, I feel bad for you, though. Your escape is in vain, and now you're captured again. Sorry!"

"Yeah, you should be, you jackass. PK FLASH!" I grin ear to ear at the sight of the bright green flash that exploded from my hand.

"Not going to take me down that easily." He runs to me with my bat. Childs play. I grin as I wait for him to swing. As soon as he swings, I grab the bat with my hand and knee him in the stomach. Ripping the bat out of his hands, I hit him across the face with the handle. With a grin, I push him to the floor.

"You said you were sorry earlier? I was thinking that you're probably real sorry now, huh?" I shake my head and turn around. Gotta get outta here. I gather my thoughts and get ready to teleport. Gotta get to Paula, then tell Giegue about Clyde. He'll know what to do, then I'll-

"Where do you think you're going?" I hear him behind me.

"Why are you still trying? You can't beat me." I turn around.

"I don't have to. Our new partner will." Clyde grins. He lifts his hand and points behind me. I turn back around and see-

"No..." My eyes widen. In front of me, Giegue was standing

"Oh yeah, Nessie." He says as he punches me in the jaw, knocking me down instantly. Grunting, I look at him. The bastard was grinning at me, like usual. He was wearing his casual clothes. He obviously didn't want to dirty his suit, probably because he knows I'd spit on it right about now.

"You son of a bitch." He runs his fingers through his hair, still grinning like a fucking hyena.

"Sorry, Ness. I'll fight Pokey, that hasn't changed, but I'm sure as hell not going to sell out my own species. It's just how things work." The last thing I see before I pass out are his glowing red eyes. ==============================================================================================================================================================================================

I'm seeing a familiar dream. My house was just blown up, courtesy of Pokey. I'm currently holding my mom tightly. "Oh no..." I hear my mom whisper.

"Guys, It's alright, I don't care about the house, you guys are alright, that's all that's important to me." I try and reassure my family.

"...Daddy?" I hear Tracy say quietly.

"Guys?" I pull away, my voice hinting at my concern. "Guys? Talk to me, what's wrong?"

"Ness, It's your father, he was still in there." I pause, not really understanding what she mean't, stupid me. It wasn't until I saw Tracy break down in tears, when the whole reality finally hit me.

I don't have a dad anymore...

The first thing I notice when I wake up is that my head hurts and my throat is dry. I take a look around, It looks like I'm in a shack not too different from the one I was locked in earlier. After squinting a bit, I notice that there are columns of bars in front of me, much like a jail cell. After a bit of looking around, I realise that this is a new place.

"Morning, Sleepyhead. I'm suprised, you sleep in a lot even in your last moments." I instinctively freeze up, instantly recognizing the voice. "So, I hear someone helped you escape the first time. Damn, Ness! Looks like everyone wants to be your friend. You're not suprised about the recent development, are you?" I remember my last moments before I was knocked out, and a torrent of anger starts flooding towards me.

"Fuck you Giegue!" I lash out at him. "You're a fucking piece of garbage, you know that? You spent two years trying to gain my trust, and for what? Just so you could stab us all in the back?"

"Like I said, I planned to help you with Pokey, I had no idea the high council would be involved." He replies calmly.

"So what?!" I yell at him, my words dripping my venom. "You're suddenly feeling a bit of Gian patriotism? Maybe I need to remind you, it was YOUR government that betrayed and killed you. They kill you, they betray you, but when they say they want you back, you just drop everything and run back? You're a damn coward, Giegue!"

"I'm a... Coward?" He says slowly, as if what I said was foreign to him. He lets out a chuckle. "I'm starting to love the new you, your daddy dies and you think you have everything and everyone figured out, huh?" I see a flicker of light as he lights a cigarette. "Let me tell you a little something. I am the product of two different people. On one side, I was a sadistic brat who had his parents taken away because they played with fire and got whacked because of it. On the other side, I was drafted into the army at an extremely young age, only to get abandoned on earth. When I was abandoned on earth, I found a family, and as it turns out, that family was only using me because I was an alien, basically, I'm going to spare you all the freudian bullshit, but to put things simply. If I'm a coward for wanting to have even a piece of that sense of family that you've grown to take for granted, than I'll accept being a coward in stride." He turns around and gets ready to leave.

"Do they even care about you?"

"Of course not." He looks back at me. "Face it, in the end people will put the needs of their own in front of others. I'm sure you would leave a Gian to die if it meant saving a human, no matter how selfish that human may be. I feel the same way with the gians, no matter how I feel about them." As he turns to leave again, the door suddenly swings open, revealing Clyde, holding my bat.

"Do you remember the conversation we had earlier?"

"The one about proving my loyalty? What about it?"

"We have prepared a test for you. One that will prove that you are true to the council."

"Really? I worked as hard as I could. Isn't my word enough to prove my loyalty?" Clyde lets out a chuckle.

"You were loyal to him, weren't you?" Clyde points a finger at me.

"Good point. What do you need?"

"Grab the meatbag, lets go." I hear a rattle as my cell opens.

"I'm gonna warn you Ness, don't try anything." He says to me quietly. "Even if you go through Mona, Jack and Clyde. You'll have me to deal with, and I'm not going to be taken out by a fucking prayer."

"Mona and Jack? Those two are working with Clyde? Do they know he's a-

"Gian spy? Of course they do, they were deployed along with him. All three of them are spies."

"You're fucking kidding me..." I groan.

"I wouldn't be so angry about it. I didn't know either, until recently." He pushes me outside, revealing the night sky. I raised an eyebrow to my surroundings, we were in a barren field, surrounded by white flowers, I forget what they're called, whatever. "To be honest, they didn't do a very good job at remaining under cover, but from what I hear, they have only been here recently. Whatever's going on, the high council didn't get involved until a few weeks ago."

"What does they Gian government want with us?" I ask, A quick smack to my head was my reply.

"Know your place, human!" Clyde snaps at me.

"Well, it looks like they want you to shut up right now." He lets out a chuckle. "To tell you the truth, I don't know, that's the only piece of the puzzle I haven't figured out yet."

"You'll figure out in due time, Giegue." Clyde turns to speak to him. Giegue shrugs. We walk out for a bit longer until we approach two people, Mona and Jack.

"So, you're here for the test?" Mona asks.

"Obviously." Giegue replies with a groan. "What the hell is this test anyway?"

"Simple, actually." Jack says as he pushes me to the floor, looking up, I see Clyde toss Giegue my bat. "Your test is to simply kill the human."

"That's dumb." Giegue frowns. "Doesn't that seem like a waste of time to you? If you were here all this time, I'm sure you've had more than a few chances to kill Ness."

"We did. However, our orders are to make sure that you are the one to kill him." Mona speaks up. "It's to make sure that you're not caught up with old loyalties."

"Hmm, you have a point." He sighs. "I guess I don't have a choice then." He says as he raises my bat.

"So this is how it ends, huh?" I spit the words out.

"Nope." He grins. "This is where it begins."


	13. With Allies Like These

It's cold.

I don't know why, but those are my first thoughts when I think about the whole situation I've gotten myself into. We're in a field, It's night time and we're surronded by white flowers and grass. From the looks of things, we're far from any of the main cities. It's a shame, if the circumstances were different I would've thought this place was quite beautiful. Instead, I'm on my knees in the brisk night air, getting ready to get my skull smashed in by a grinning bastard I thought was on my side. Serves me right for trusting Giygas, I guess... It really is a shame though, If I knew of this place, I would've taken Paula here. It would've been a nice place to finish off a date.

A date? I want to date Paula all of a sudden? Where did that come from? All my time with Paula, and I've never thought of dating her until now. I guess the concept of my inevitable death is messing up my head a little. I suppose it would've been nice. I've always wanted to know what love was like, and no, I'm not talking about knocking up some random girl at your friends house when the adults aren't there. I've been there and done that, it solved nothing. What I want is different, I want real love, like what my parents had with each other. The kind of passion that allowed them to accept their flaws and quirks and still be happy. I don't want just sex, I want that, not that I'm saying the sex is bad, but now I'm thinking like Giegue.

That prick. Speaking of Giegue, he's the reason I'll never experience any of this! I'm not going experience love, or going pro in baseball, I'm not going to be able to graduate, or get my first car, I'm not even going to be able to say goodbye to Jeff, Poo, Paula, Apple Kid, Venus, Dr. Andonuts, Frank, The Runaway Five, Tracy, or anyone for that matter, and it's all his fault! All his goddamn fault! As I continue to think about it, my anger for Giegue rises. All of a sudden, I want to kill him. I want to take my bat and smash those perfect teeth of his, then break his jaw so he can't grin anymore. Then I'd break his arms so he can't brag about his fucking boxing skills anymore, but not before I break his legs so he can't run. Then, I'd go for his balls, let's see you sleep with all those girls now! After that, and only after all that. I'd finally go for his head, can't brag about your great military mind when your skull is caved in, and I wish he was wearing his white suit, so I could ruin it with his blood! The best part, is that he would deserve it! He would deserve every second of it! Giegue came to earth and ruined everyone's life, then when he was executed, he came back to do it again, and then, for a third time, he tries it again and lets out Pokey in the process, and this is the best part! He comes to me with this whole 'I'm sorry' crap, and I believed it! I actually believed it, and now he's going to do it again!

"You know Ness. You have a good point there." He must've read my mind. "I ruined a lot of lives, and I've ended just as much. The funny part is, the incedent with Ninten isn't even the first time I've done that. While I was doing those things, you think I didn't look in the mirror and question why I was doing it? You think I've never doubted myself? You think I've never broke down in tears and apologized for all those horrible war crimes I've commited so early in my life." He closes his eyes for a bit, in that moment, he looked peaceful, as if he was having a pleasant dream. He opens his eyes, his face taking on a more somber expression. "You think I've never dreamt about leaving the council again?" He talks quieter. "Going back to George and Maria, living a peaceful life with no bloodshed and no war. Wouldn't that be nice?" He looks past me, as if remembering something from long ago. "Whatever." He lets out a laugh before looking at me. "But, now I'm sure you're wondering if I'm telling the truth? Who knows? I might be, I might not be. The answer is best left to history now, isn't it?" I stare deeply into those red eyes of his. They're glowing slightly, in the moonlight, they look like rubies. Something about them really gets me thinking.

Does Giegue really feel sorry for what he did? Does that even make it okay? I really wish he was more clear with stuff like this. Now, I'm all confused. My thoughts about him really shouldn't change, He's still betraying me and he's still about to kill me with my own bat, but I can't help but feel bad for all the horrible things I wished upon him a few moments ago. He probably deserves everything I've thought about doing, but now It just feels so horrible that I even thought them. Damn it, why is he making this so complicated! I sigh as I shift my gaze to my bat, it's not important now. I'm still going to die.

"So. This is how it ends, huh?" Unable to think of anything else to say. I ask the obvious.

"Nope." Giegue grins at me. I swear, does he ever stop grinning? It must be hell on his cheeks. "This is where it begins." He takes a moment to clear his throat. "This is my verdict. As I bring my weapon upon this boy's head, it represents my judgement. All who watch must learn from this. Failure will not be tolerated. No matter how skilled or how young, if you fail, you will die. It is as simple as that." He lets out a sigh. "Any of you know what it means?" He looks back at the three, they all meet him with confused faces.

"No." Mona speaks up. "We've never heard anything like that. Who said it?"

"Mjollek did, a very long time ago. It would be a quote for the history books, but unfortunately, the records are sealed." Giegue rolls his eyes. "Typical of him."

"It sounds like a good quote. What does it mean?" Jack asks. Giegue grins even wider.

"It means THIS!" Giegue yelled as he smacks Jack in the face with my bat. He then shoots a PK Fire at Clyde and a PK Freeze at Mona. "Fucking idiots. How stupid do you think I am? I know Mjollek is planning to kill me after I do this, and you guys really need to learn how to be humans better. I knew you guys were up to something since when we first met." He shakes his head and turns to me. "You OK, Ness?" He extends his hand towards me. I say nothing, I just stare at him blankly, eyes wide with suprise. He wasn't going to betray me? "Figured as much, you still think I'm not on you're side. Look, when this is done, I'll tell you anything you want. You cool with that?"

"Fine." I say as I get up.

"Cool, now then, we can get to beating down these morons."

"That was a stupid move." Mona says as they all get up.

"Was it really?" Giegue turns around to face them. "I don't think so. A stupid move would've have been running back to the High Council like nothing happened."

"Hmph. Mjollek was going to allow you to live."

"Ha! You actually believe that? You guys are dumber than I thought." Giegue shakes his head. "Anyway. You little dogs should run back to your owner."

"Don't worry." Clyde begins.

"We will." Mona continues.

"After your dead!" Jack raises his foot. I sprint over to him and tackle him to the ground. Clyde sees this and rushes over to us.

"Ness! Catch." Giegue throws my bat to me. "Watch out, Jack knows PK Ground, don't let him stomp. Mona has Thunder and Clyde has Freeze."

"Do they have anything else?" I manage to say to Giegue despite that I'm now being attacked by Clyde and Jack."

"No, these guys are really pathetic, to be honest." He rolls his shoulders. "Well, I'm sure they have some talent, otherwise they'd be dead, but they are pretty trash compared to us."

"You have a lot of confidence in me." I say back to him while wrestling the both of them. "To be honest. I was expecting you to take care of things by yourself."

"Not like you couldn't handle them yourself. I think you derserve a bit of confidence. You took me out once, didn't you?"

"With lots of help." I mumble as I continue to wrestle Clyde and Jack. Evantually after a bit, I manage to kick them off of me.

"You have no chance against us." He gets up slowly. I grin at him, not unlike Giegue.

"Ha! I was about to say the exact same thing. For members of the Gian army, you three sure are weak." I crack my neck. "I guess you just pissed off the wrong humans, huh?" I let out a PK Rockin' and knock him back, I quickly jump to the side before Mona's PK Thunder hit me. Clyde raises his arm and get ready to shoot a freeze at me, but Giegue knocks him down quickly with a PK Freeze of his own.

"You know." Giegue turns slightly to me. "These guys have the fear of Mjollek in them. They won't stop until they die. I say we stop trying to incapacitate them and just go for the kill. Mjollek is going to kill them anyway." I nod to him. Right, I have to kill them, they wont stop otherwise. Simple. Just kill them.

I just have to kill them...

I watch Giegue walk up to Clyde and shoot a Rockin' Omega, right in his face. It didn't take an expert to see that Clyde was dead.

"You bastards!" Jack yelled out in anger of watching Clyde die.

"How could you!" Mona screamed out from beside him.

"Simple really." Giegue replied, unfazed. "Nothing the council didn't teach you, I'm sure." He turns his head to me. "So, with two now, the odds should be even. Dibs on the Cinqtopolis kid." He starts to make his way towards Jack. Right then, that leaves me with Mona. I should've brought my Franklin Badge, this would be a hell of a lot easier if I did. Well, I can't cry about it now. With a scream, Mona shoots a PK Thunder at me, I simply step out of the way to avoid it. It's pathetic, really. With a scream, she tries to shoot another PK Thunder at me. I just step out of the way again. With a sigh, I shoot a PK Flash to blind her.

"Die! Die you murderer! Die!" She starts shooting PK Thunders randomly at this point. I simply walk up to her and push her to the ground.

'Good work Ness.' I hear Giegue's voice in my head. 'I guess she was physically the weakest fighter out of all them. Watch out for the PSI, though. Anyway, you got her where you want her. A well swung bat to the head should finish the job.' Right, Gotta finish it. I raise my bat.

"Go ahead, kill me! Kill me like Giegue killed my friend! Show your true colours, human!" My arms tense up a bit.

"My true colours?"

"Yes! You are obviously evil if you're working with Giegue, even after the Kl'rt annexation." There it is again, that annexation I keep hearing about. First Clyde and now Mona, what is it?

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I say this a bluntly as I can.

"The Kl'rt annexation, you fool! Don't pretend you know nothing of it!"

"You better give me some answers. I don't even know what a Kl-whatever is!" I growl at her. She widens her eyes in suprise.

"The Dominus objective! The siege of Tarnax IV! Giegue didn't tell you anything!?"

"I think he mentioned it before but-"

"Ness, watch out!" I hear Giegue yell at me. I instinctively jump out of the way. Just in time to see a PK Thunder Omega land where I was just a moment ago. Mona lets out a hiss of annoyance. I push her down on the ground with my foot and turn to watch Giegue and Jack's fight.

"No way..." I hear Mona say in awe. Jack is being completely outclassed by Giegue. Jack throws a right jab, only to be dodged and countered by Giegue. He tries a left hook, only to have the same result. Jack gets his bearings back and tries another punch, only this time, he stops inches from Giegue's face and opens his hand.

I hear a ringing in my ears. My vision goes white. My guess is that he used a beta version of PK Flash. I don't have much time to think, because I feel my foot hit the ground and something collide with my cheek. My vision clears up quickly, and I see Jack heaving with his fist extended. Hmm, I guess he just punched me.

"That all you got?" I taunt him before grabbing his extended hand and throwing him back to Giegue. Giegue puts his hand on Jack's face, charges a bit of PSI and BANG! Something that sounds like a gunshot came from Jack as he fell lifelessly to the ground.

"NO!" I hear Mona scream out. I let out a sigh as I catch her hand coming from the side. "Let me go! You monsters!"

"Riiight." Giegue approaches. "Of course we're the monsters! After all, we're the ones that have enslaved thousands of planets, and we're the ones that have the most corrupt leader ruling over us, and we're the ones that kill or maim anyone who fails a mission. Oh wait." He grins.

'So, do we... You know...' I telepathically grumble to Giegue.

'No, actually, let her go. Let her see how great her fearless leader really is.'

'You sure?'

'Positive. You need to see this too.' He nods to me. Taking his nod as a signal. I let her go. "Okay then, I have a proposition for you, council dog. You can either end up like your two friends. Or you can go to your mothership in peace. The choice is yours." She gives us one quick glance before she runs away and uses Teleport Alpha to get out of here.

"Are you sure that was a good idea? What if she tells this Mjollek person about our fighting stratgeties?"

"She won't need to. If the big man need to know about our 'tactics'. Then he'll just watch directly. By the way, I hope you're not squemish."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"3... 2... 1..." As soon as he says 1, a purple light starts to form in front of us before finally revealing- Oh my god! What was returned to us was Mona, except... She was dead. No, dead isn't enough to describe it. She was on the ground, impaled by around 10 metal spikes. Amidst all the blood, the only thing that I managed to discern was her face, which was seemingly unscathed compared to the rest of her body. Her face was frozen into a permanent expression of anguish and fear "Ah, the delusion of choice. " Giegue shakes his head at the sight.

"Why the hell would you want me to see this!?"

"Simple, you need to see what brutality Mjollek is capable of. I don't know what's he's doing here, but you have to understand that it isn't going to be good. I couldn't rely on you trusting me, since you don't like me much, you had to see it for yourself."

"Oh god... I think I'm going to be sick!" I hold my stomach and look away.

"It's what he wants." Giegue replies, still fixuated on Mona's corpse "He wants you to be scared, he wants you to be afraid, he wants to break you. It's so he can win. Warfare is all psyche when it comes to the High Council. It's how they work." He shakes his head one last time before finally turning to me. "Come on. Let's get out of here, I promised to explain the whole thing to you, and I plan to do that. We don't need to be here anymore." He says as he gathers up energy to teleport. As I'm teleporting, I can't help but take one last glance at the grizzly sight before me before finally teleporting home.

* * *

**Hey folks. Sorry about the late update. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Bye.**


	14. Answers

INTERLUDE 3: A Personal Keepsake.

She woke up in a daze. Not this again... It seems she had yet another blackout. With a grunt she slowly checked her surroundings. It appears she was in a cave this time. Something told her that this was not an ordinary cave... With nothing else in mind, she decided to walk around the cave and see if she can find anything strange with the cave. As she wandered around the deserted cave, she tried to remember what she was doing before her upteemth blackout. It was a waste of time, she could not remember what she was doing for the life of her. She kicked a rock on the ground out of annoyance. "Huh?" She spoke out loud for some reason she could not say. The rock she kicked landed beside something. She approached the object with caution. She didn't really know why she was so slow to approach the object, but she was cautious nonetheless. Upon approaching the object, she realized what the object was.

It was a hat. The hat was red and blue and it looked quite old, like it hasn't been worn in years. For some reason, she was drawn to it. She picked up the crumpled old hat and shook some of the dirt and dust off until it was reasonably clean, she then carefully placed the hat on her head. As the hat touched the top of her head, she couldn't help but feel a warmth in her cheeks. She didn't know why, but putting the hat on her head felt pleasant... She began to smile slightly as she continued to walk around the cave.

While she was still in a good mood, due to the hat. Her thoughts drifted back to the orgin of this cave. This place, perhaps it was a hideout of some sort. Not too far from the hat, she also found little pieces of technology lying around, but while the little bits certainly hinted that there was a fight here once, the cave itself still remained a mystery.

"It is no use." She said out loud again. "It appears that I am not going to find the origins of the place. Not like this anyway." With a sigh, and a small adjustment to the hat on her head, she shifted her goal to finding out how to exit the cave.

* * *

After using PSI to figure out how to get back to her hotel room, she had finally arrived. It turns out that it wasn't too far from the cave.

"Hey." She let out a grunt in response. She did not want to deal with Porky today. "Yeah, The boss sent me here to tell you that the three are dead. Giygas and Ness killed them off." He explained as he strode into the room. He looked like he was about to say something, but then his eyes widened when he noticed the hat on her head. "Is that what I think it is?" He asked in shock. She frowned and took the hat off. "Let me see that hat." He started to approach her. She put the hat behind her back.

"No, I do not want you do see it. It is none of your business." She replied calmly.

"The hell it isn't!" Porky raised his voice. "Let me see that hat!"

"No! It is mine." She spoke a little more aggressively. Porky ran over and tried to grab at it, she simply pushed him against the wall.

'Enough!' A deep male voice rang in her head. 'I did not assign you two to work together just to argue and fight. Porky is going to the future. He needs to take care of things there.' Porky was suddenly teleported. 'Now then, as for you.' The voice was reduced to mere noise, she simply couldn't focus as her vision slowly faded to black."

* * *

We return to Giegue's house. The horrible sight still fresh in my mind.

"OK then, ask away." He turns to me, snapping my out of my trance.

"What?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Seriously? About what I did. Like I said earlier, I'll answer any of your questions."

"Why did you cause a scene like that if you were never on their side to begin with." He let out a sigh.

"Right, I guess I should explain that to you." He clears his throat. "Basically, this all started when I brought Mona to Cinqtopolis. When I arrived there, Stripe Shirts were running around worshiping some guy named Clyde. They were all about destroying this other gang called The Verticals."

"The Verticals? Don't tell me it means-

"Yes, it does. Vertical stripes." I groan inwardly. "So basically, Clyde, Jack and Mona met each other, when they met, it was liked something clicked into place. I didn't really notice it much at the time, but things started getting weirder and weirder, starting when Clyde straight up used PK Freeze, said he figured it out because of admiration for Steven. That's just straight up bullshit. After all, the only reason Steven had the aptitude for PSI was because Giegue gave it to him."

"Wait WHAT?" I ask in shock.

"Yeah, Giegue had a few humans lined up for an easy body switch if the need arises. He exposed them to a bit of psychic radiation, that's how they got their limited PSI." Psychic radiation, that's new to me. "Anyway, those three were starting to show up more and more. Mona blocked out a mind reading attempt from me a few times, She also knew PSI by the way. By the time we were fighting the octobots, all three of them were using PSI. That really started to set off big alarms for me. I mean, what the hell are the chances of meeting 3 natural PSI users over the course of a week anyway?" Gotta admit, that's pretty unlikely. The only reason I met Paula was because I was looking for her, and Poo was looking for me. I didn't meet either of them randomly.

"What's psychic radiation?" I ask.

"Oh, no one's entirely sure. All we know is that its exposure is directly linked to the ability to use PSI." Giegue may be intolerable, but he was always full of useful information. "As far as its orgin goes, many Gian scholars have written volumes on the subject, yet no one really has a definite answer."

"So, if you get exposed to this radiation, you get PSI?"

"If your a human, then yeah you'll get it PSI from it. It works with some species like the mooks, the Gians and the humans. It doesn't work as nicely with others, let's just leave it at that for now." He looked down for a moment.

"So, where does it come from?"

"It comes from PSI usage. Every time you or I use a PK Rocking or Rock or whatever you call it. It gives off psychic radiation. Think of it like the radiation that comes after a nuclear explosion of some sort. Now, when it comes to PSI attacks, not much comes from the stuff you or I do. To create a sizable amount, you would need a combined effort, like a PSI cannon, but that's another lesson. Nah, the real stuff comes from a more direct approach."

"Like what?"

"Psychic essence." I raise an eyebrow. "It's like, the soul of the Gians. When the body is destroyed, that's all that's left, a living being of PSI." So when Pokey took Giegue out of the Devil's Machine, that form, Giegue took. That was psychic essence?

"Wait, but Pokey had a lot of exposure to... Well, you. Does that mean-?"

"Yeah, it does. Pokey has PSI, almost assuredly because of me." My jaw hangs open at the thought of Pokey with PSI. "I wouldn't worry too much. He has the ability, but he's never used it. My hypothesis is that he has it and doesn't even know. Think of it like this, do you remember Steven with any memorable skill with PSI?"

"Well, no, he had one of the most accurate PK Thunders I've ever seen, but that's it."

"Please." Giegue shakes his head. "It's not hard to aim a thunder with your hands. It takes practice, that's all."

"So, what about me? Was I exposed to this stuff? Because I've had PSI since I was a kid."

"No, some humans can just naturally use PSI without any exposure to psychic radiation. It's becoming an increasingly common trait ever since George thought it was a good idea to share PSI with the world."

"So, Giegue exposed Steven to this stuff?"

"Yeah, he exposed a few kids to psychic radiation and went on with his life."

"A few?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Uh... Yeah... Giegue or rather, you know him as Giygas at this point. He was jumping back and forth through time and exposing people like crazy. His lucky winner was Steven."

"Why'd he pick Steven?"

"Because at this point, Steven was acquainted with you. Giegue saw him as the perfect host at this point. He was rich, fit, acquainted with you, and on top of all that, he had the perfect attitude."

"The perfect attitude?"

"Yeah, when Giegue took over Steven, it wasn't quick and painless. It was supposed to be, but Steven was just too stubborn for his own good. Instead, Steven dragged it on and on and on. So eventually, Giegue had to do it the long and hard way. So then came the seizures, the vomiting, the migraines. By the end of it, I never-" He pauses. "Steven never slept, he would just roam around at night. You know, when we were at Tazmily." I nod. "Giegue didn't really care about how long it took to take over Steven's body, thought."

"Why not?"

"Because Steven had the perfect attitude, like I said. Giegue had Steven all figured out. You see, Steven had a bit of an inferiority complex. He always felt the need to be better, to be tougher, and in his mind, tough people don't cry about their pain. So he hid it. Someone else might have told someone, but Steven? Not a chance." He shakes his head.

"Do you have an inferiority complex? You know, because you're part Steven?"

"Nah, I can't have one."

"Why not?"

"No one's better than me." He says arrogantly. "I'm clearly the best humanity has to offer." He starts laughing. "I kid, I kid." He stops laughing but continues to smile a bit. "Anyway, do you want something to drink?"

"Not if it's alcohol." I reply.

"It's fine, I got kiddy drinks too." He says as he pours himself a brown liquid.

"Don't you mean age appropriate?"

"Hmm?"

"All the booze you drink, I mean. You're not allowed to drink any of it. You're only sixteen on your human side."

"Yeah, I guess, dork..." He adds in quietly.

"Me? A dork? Of course, everyone knows that cool kids kill their lungs and liver."

"Damn truth." He says jokingly as he tosses me a can of pop. "Still, uncool kids can kill their lungs too. Jeff smokes, right?"

"Yeah, I never understood how he could be called a nerd, I mean, he's smart, but he's one of the coolest guys I've met."

"Hey, when you have talent, people just hate you. Believe me, I know a thing or two about that." I open my pop and take a sip, Giegue follows suit and takes a drink from his glass.

"Hey, Giegue. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure man, I'm an open book."

"What was the annexation about?" He looks at me with a confused expression.

"What annexation?"

"You know... The one that Mona and Clyde kept talking about. The Dominus Objective or something." Silence, I look up and see Giegue looking at me with widened eyes, the colour drained from his face.

"The Kl'rt Annexation? They told you about that?"

"Yeah, what happened?"

"Well." He says in a much quieter tone, almost mumbling. "The Kl'rt Annexation and the Dominus Objective are two different things..."

"Tell me about the Annexation." I lean in slightly to hear him better.

"I rose up the ranks in the High Council pretty quickly. I impressed the boss a great amount, in fact. That I was to join the occupation of Tarnax IV with a small force, it was supposed to give me experience on the battlefield. Our mission was to simply occupy the outside of a building. Nothing more, nothing less. At least, that's what it was supposed to be."

"What happened?"

"I got some personalized orders, from Mjollek himself."

"What were they?"

"Attack." He looks down. "That's what he told me. He told me to attack the building with all the PSI I could. So I did."

"Why would he tell you to do that?" He rested his head on his hands. There was a pregnant pause for what felt like 10 minutes.

"I don't know..."

"You guys keep saying Kl'rt this and that, but I don't have the slightest clue what one is?"

"Oh... Imagine a 7 to 9 foot tall crocodile that stands like a human."

"Oh wow. Those things sound like they should be mutants or something."

"Look, Ness. I know I said I was an open book, but can we not talk about this? Maybe I'll tell you the whole thing some day, but I really don't want to talk about it right now."

"OK, fine. We can talk about something else."

"Thanks Ness." He smiles meekly. Hmm... That has to be the first time I've ever seen him apologize for anything. This is also the first time that he's ever just smiled, not smirk or grin, just honestly smile. "Why are you staring at my face so much? You look like you want to kiss me or something. Are you gay?" And our little moment has been thrown in the wind, should've known it wouldn't last.

"No." I grunt at him. He replies with a grin.

"Anyway, you got anything else to ask me? Or are we just going to stare at each other intensely?"

"Uh, I dunno, tell me about yourself?"

"You kidding me?" He takes a sip of his drink. "You know my history, on both sides no less." He shrugs. "Alright, fine. Well, on the Steven side of things. I grew up in Cinqtopolis, as you know. Things weren't too bad in the begining. I was bullied a bit, Kevin Hall was the wiseguy's name. Yeah, he was a lot bigger than me. He was alot better than me at sports too. Except for hockey, he couldn't skate for shit. I wasn't alone, though. I hung out with another guy, Jonathan Ciccarelli. You know him better as the original Stripe Shirt leader. You know, the one who got a hold of guns and tried to shoot you?"

"Yeah. I know exactly who your talking about."

"Yep, we used to be best friends. Calling a gang the Stripe Shirts was my idea, we would talk about starting our own gang to get Kevin off of us. Don't know what I was thinking. Let me tell you that. I don't know how we were friends, because his dad was a leader of a gang called the Kings. Now, I didn't really know too much about it at the time, but my parents were involved to some shady shit of their own, they stole tax money and put it in their own pockets. They're widely seen as the bunch who ruined Cinqtopolis. It was so bad, that Jonathan dad sent a couple of wiseguys to kill them. The city became poor quickly because of them. First thing to go was our sports teams."

"Oh yeah, the Cinqtopolis Aces baseball team, I remember those guys." I nod.

"Pfft! The Aces weren't even the worst of it. We lost the Rangers, our hockey team that has been around for almost 80 years. The pride and joy of Cinqtopolis for christsakes! We went to being one of the most well known and respected teams in the EHL, now we'd be lucky to even have a hockey fan remember who we were. Back then, when the Cinqtopolis Rangers were in town, that shit was prime time tv right there, you'd see skill, finesse, and violence all mixed together. It was a fucking sight. But no, they got moved here. Now they're the Summers Panthers. Hockey in Summers, what a joke..."

"You really like Hockey, huh?"

"Oh yeah! I used to watch all the Rangers games with my parents."

"Still follow it?"

"Yeah, I'm following Fourside nowadays. They have a few guys who used to be on the Rangers, but it's really not the same. Their goalie though, Trevor Sindel, he used to be one of the Big three."

"Big Three?" I ask.

"Yeah, the three biggest players for the Rangers. Fans of Winters and Threed would always call them The Three Stooges. Probably couldn't take the heat of those three." He grinned. "The three were: Trevor Sindel, the goalie, people call him Cindy as a nickname, man he had a temper on him. He really had a knack for pissing people off. It was for multiple reasons, if you tried to screen him, he'd kick you, smack you, talk shit in you ear, and if you didn't like it? He'd kick your ass. Not only that, but he's still a really succesful goalie, he's 8th in all time goalie wins. Then there was Rene LaFuhr, left winger, he was originally nothing more than a goon, dumb muscle that's only there to fight, but our coach saw some really good passing skills in him, so he put him on the top line with goal scorer Joseph Tanguay and the last member of the big three. Richard Weasley, man he was a badass! He could do it all, score, play defensively, take faceoffs, and he was intense. He wasn't afraid to get in there and fight with the toughest of them either, and at 6 foot 6 220 pounds, he was intimidating. I have like, a million old tapes of the Rangers playing, but I'm getting carried away, sorry about that."

"It's fine. So, these guys, do they all still play?"

"Uh, yeah, actually. LaFuhr stayed on the Panthers but he retired not too long ago because he was pretty old, and he had a pair of really bad fights that just ended him, maybe I'll show you the fights one day, this was after the Rangers moved, but I recorded them anyway because it's LaFuhr. As for the other two, Weasley plays for Twoson, and I told you about Sindel. Cinqtopolis used to be so great, man. Don't let Nationals fans tell you otherwise. "

"Yeah. Sucks about Cinqtopolis."

"Sucks doesn't even begin to describe it." He shakes his head. "No use moping about it, things'll look up when that pig headed mayor is out. Then maybe we could get our sports teams back."

"Yeah, that would be cool. Although, to be honest, your hockey team may have been badass, but your baseball team sucked." He let out a hearty chuckle.

"Oh god. You got that right. None of us really cared though, we were all hockey fans."

"Yeah. Hey, Giegue, I need to ask you something serious right now." His expression changed as he took another sip of his drink.

"Yeah?"

"What does the High Council want with earth? The guy I was sharing a cell with, he told me that Mjollek is actually on earth with two generals." Giegue's mouth falls agape.

"Seriously? Like here!? On earth?" I nod. "Oh shit." He downs his drink and pours himself another glass. "Well, then I have good news and bad news. The bad news is if Mjollek actually bothered to get off of his ass, then whatever he's planning is big, and he's overseeing the project to make sure that no one fucks up. The good news is that whatever this plan may be, it's definitely not to kill us all."

"How are you so sure of that?"

"Well, you have to understand how the High Council thinks first. The High Council has an efficiency first mentality, which basically means that they don't want to do any wasted actions, they always want to find the most simple and direct way to solve everything. With this in mind, when Mjollek comes to a planet, the High Council mothership follows. Right now, it's probably parked a little bit outside our solar system. Just in range to use the planet cracker."

"P-P-Planet Cracker?"

"Yeah, P-P-Planet Cracker. It's a big ass PSI powered laser that can reduce a planet to dust in the blink of an eye. Considering that it travels at about 400 light years per second, If they fired it, we wouldn't really be having ths conversation. No, we'd be reduced to dust in less than a second. However they haven't fired it, so it's not like they think we're a threat that needs to be eliminated. No, they need us for something."

"I see. I have another question about this Mjollek, if you don't mind."

"Is this about the fight earlier?"

"Yeah. Why did he do that to Mona?" I ask him, the sight of her like that is still remember freshly.

"Because she failed. Simple as that. Failure isn't tolerated in the High Council." This Mjollek guy, he decided to just kill one of his soldiers just like that, because she failed? What's that going to solve? I start to get mad, to just take a life like that for no good reason. "It has two different meanings. One is for his side, that failure will not be tolerated. The other meaning is for the opposing side. He's basically saying that 'you better not screw up, I have no problem killing people in the most messed up ways possible.' Or something like that." That's it? He kills his own subordinates just to send a fucking **message!?**

**"**So, how long has Mjollek been in power?" I grunt, my voice betraying my anger.

"Years."

"A few years?"

"No." He shakes his head. "A few thousand, he's the oldest Gian anyone knows. There are Gian records of him dating back at least 5 thousand years." My mouth falls open.

"How long has he been doing this? You know, killing people if they fail."

"I didn't even knew he was doing it until he blew me to pieces infront of the whole High Council." He shakes his head. "Man, that pissed me off. All that work I did for him, and he just discarded me like a piece of trash, and now he actually wants me to do more work for him? What a-" Suddenly, a loud bang was heard as three people teleport in Giegue's house. It took me a moment to realise it was Jeff, Paula, and Poo. "Aww! You bastards ruined my floor! What the hell!?"

"Shut up Giegue." Jeff snapped at him.

"Where have you been!?" Paula grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. She moved her face close to mine. "Your mom is worried sick about you! I went to your house, and your mom tells me that you haven't shown up in two days." Oh crap, I've been gone for two days.

"He got captured by Pokey, together, we figured out that the Gian military is involved. The war is going to be that much harder now. This is good actually, that you're all here. I need too tell all of you guys something. With the high council military involved, this presents a huge problem. If we continue to fight, I can almost assure you, in our current state, fighting the High Council head on only has one possible outcome. That outcome is us losing, the Gian Military by itself is about three times the population of earth, and that's just of Gians, I'm not even including all the other aliens that have joined the high council out of fear. I'm not going to lie, just so the rest of you know, I got an offer to rejoin the High Council just yesterday, and as Ness knows, I threw it in their faces. To be honest, I really should have joined the high council. I'd really have an easier time working with them then trying to defeat them, but I don't want that. I like Earth, I really don't want the High Council to enslave it. That being said, I don't want anybody here to try and fight the Gians directly, if you see one, you tell the others. You don't cry, you don't whine, you don't say that you have it covered, no, you fucking run and tell everyone else. OK?" Everyone nods. "Good, now that that's out of the way, we need to go to Ninten's time for something tomorrow."

"What?" I ask him.

"There a huge problem there, and I'm beginning to think that the High Council may have something to do with it."

"What exactly is the problem?" Paula asked him.

"You guys remember Ninten's cute little girlfriend, right?"

"Ana? Yeah, what about her?"

"She's running around dressed like a biker and doing really crazy stuff. From what I've gathered, she has super strength and endurance. I don't know what it is, but the chances of this showing up right as the High Council makes a move isn't a coincidence to me. With that being said, is there anything you want to add, Ness?"

"Right." I speak up. "Guys, this is going to be hard. The High Council doesn't really know anything about remorse or anything like that from what I saw. I also wouldn't really blame any of you if you decided to go up and leave. So if you're going to leave, I wanted to say-

"You have got to be kidding me, Ness." Jeff interrupts me. "Do you honestly think that any of us are seriously going to take you up on that offer and just walk away? I think I speak for everyone here when I say we're not leaving you." Nodding, Jeff and I look at Paula.

"We're in this together, just like the old days, right?" Paula smiles at me. My heart flutters a bit as we turn to Poo.

"I am your sword, Ness." He says abruptly.

"Yeah, I'm with you guys too." I hear Giegue from behind me, I quickly turn around to face him. "You may think otherwise, due to the performance I showed you earlier, but I don't have any respect for Mjollek or the High Council. I'm not going back even if they beg for me. I'm with you guys 'till the end." He raises the last of his drink and chugs it down.

"You guys have no idea how happy I am to hear that." I let out a deep breath. "Alright, lets get some rest, then we can meet up with Giegue tommorow."

"You guys are going to be up early by the way." Giegue adds in.

"Right, let's go." Giegue snaps his fingers as he teleports all of us to our respective homes.


End file.
